A Front-End ASIC with Receive Sub-array Beamforming Integrated with a 32 × 32 PZT Matrix Transducer for 3-D Transesophageal Echocardiography
Chao Chen (TU Delft - Electronic Instrumentation)
Zhao Chen (TU Delft - Electronic Instrumentation)
Deep Bera (Erasmus MC)
Shreyas B. Raghunathan (ImPhys/Acoustical Wavefield Imaging )
Maysam Shabanimotlagh (ImPhys/Acoustical Wavefield Imaging )
Emile Noothout (ImPhys/Acoustical Wavefield Imaging )
Zu-Yao Chang (TU Delft - Electronic Instrumentation)
Jacco Ponte (Oldelft Ultrasound)
Christian Prins (Oldelft Ultrasound)
Hendrik J. Vos (ImPhys/Acoustical Wavefield Imaging , Erasmus MC)
Johan G. Bosch (Erasmus MC)
Martin D. Verweij (Erasmus MC, ImPhys/Acoustical Wavefield Imaging )
Nico De Jong (Erasmus MC, ImPhys/Acoustical Wavefield Imaging )
Michiel A.P. Pertijs (TU Delft - Electronic Instrumentation)
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Abstract
This paper presents a power-and area-efficient front-end application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) that is directly integrated with an array of 32 × 32 piezoelectric transducer elements to enable next-generation miniature ultrasound probes for real-time 3-D transesophageal echocardiography. The 6.1 × 6.1 mm2 ASIC, implemented in a low-voltage 0.18-μm CMOS process, effectively reduces the number of receive (RX) cables required in the probe's narrow shaft by ninefold with the aid of 96 delay-and-sum beamformers, each of which locally combines the signals received by a sub-array of 3 × 3 elements. These beamformers are based on pipeline-operated analog sample-and-hold stages and employ a mismatch-scrambling technique to prevent the ripple signal associated with the mismatch between these stages from limiting the dynamic range. In addition, an ultralow-power low-noise amplifier architecture is proposed to increase the power efficiency of the RX circuitry. The ASIC has a compact element matched layout and consumes only 0.27 mW/channel while receiving, which is lower than the state-of-the-art circuit. Its functionality has been successfully demonstrated in 3-D imaging experiments.