Integrated Circuits for Miniature 3–D Ultrasound Probes

Solutions for the Interconnection Bottleneck

Doctoral thesis (2020)

Authors

Z. Chen TU Delft Electronic Instrumentation

Contributors

M.A.P. Pertijs (promotor)
N. de Jong (promotor)

Degree granting institution

Delft University of Technology

Research Group
Electronic Instrumentation (EEMCS) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2020 Z. Chen
DOI
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https://doi.org/10.4233/uuid:54597354-3ebd-4bee-b5de-4a87e22bceae
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Published Date

21-12-2020

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Faculty

Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Department

Microelectronics

Research Group

Electronic Instrumentation

Abstract

This thesis describes low-power application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designs to mitigate the constraint of cable count in miniature 3-D TEE probes. Receive cable count reduction techniques including subarray beamforming and digital time-division multiplexing (TDM) have been explored and the effectiveness of these techniques has been demonstrated by experimental prototypes. Digital TDM is a reliable technique to reduce cable count but it requires an in-probe datalink for high-speed data communication. A quantitative study on the impact of the datalink performance on B-mode ultrasound image quality has been introduced in this thesis for data communications in future digitized ultrasound probes. Finally, a high-voltage transmitter prototype has been presented for effective cable count reduction in transmission while achieving good power efficiency.