A Pitch-Matched Low-Noise Analog Front-End With Accurate Continuous Time-Gain Compensation for High-Density Ultrasound Transducer Arrays
Peng Guo (TU Delft - Electronic Instrumentation)
Z.Y. Chang (TU Delft - Electronic Instrumentation)
Emile Noothout (TU Delft - ImPhys/Medical Imaging)
H.J. Vos (Erasmus MC, TU Delft - ImPhys/Medical Imaging)
J. G. Bosch (Erasmus MC)
N. de Jong (Erasmus MC, TU Delft - ImPhys/Medical Imaging)
M. Verweij (TU Delft - ImPhys/Medical Imaging, Erasmus MC)
M. A P Pertijs (TU Delft - Electronic Instrumentation)
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Abstract
This article presents a compact analog front-end (AFE) circuit for ultrasound receivers with linear-in-dB continuous gain control for time-gain compensation (TGC). The AFE consists of two variable-gain stages, both of which employ a novel complementary current-steering network (CCSN) as the interpolator to realize continuously variable gain. The first stage is a trans-impedance amplifier (TIA) with a hardware-sharing inverter-based input stage to save power and area. The TIA's output couples capacitively to the second stage, which is a class-AB current amplifier (CA). The AFE is integrated into an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) in a 180-nm high-voltage BCD technology and assembled with a 100 μm-pitch PZT transducer array of 8 × 8 elements. Both electrical and acoustic measurements show that the AFE achieves a linear-in-dB gain error below ±0.4 dB within a 36-dB gain range, which is > 2 × better than the prior art. Per channel, the AFE occupies 0.025 mm2 area, consumes 0.8 mW power, and achieves an input-referred noise density of 1.31 pA/√Hz.