A sigma-delta-based sparse synthetic aperture beamformer for real-time 3-D ultrasound

Sigma-delta modulation allows delay resolution in ultrasound beamformers to be achieved by simple clock cycle delays applied to the undecimated bit-stream, greatly reducing the complexity of the signal processing and the number of bits in the datapath. The simplifications offered by this technique have the potential for low power and portable operation in advanced systems such as 3-D and color Doppler imagers. In this paper, an architecture for a portable, real-time, 3-D sparse synthetic aperture ultrasound beamformer based on sigma-delta modulation is presented, and its simulated performance is analyzed. Specifically, with a 65-element linear phased array and three transmit events, this architecture is shown to achieve a 1.1 degrees beamwidth, a -54-dB secondary lobe level, and a theoretical frame rate of 1700 frames/s at lambda/64 delay resolution using a second-order low pass sigma-delta modulator. Finally, a technique for modifying the proposed multi-beam architecture to allow improved analog-to-digital (A/D) resolution by premodulating the input signal for bandpass sigma-delta modulation is also presented.