A Low-Power High-Dynamic-Range Receiver System for In-Probe 3-D Ultrasonic Imaging

In this paper, a dual-mode low-power, high dynamic-range receiver circuit is designed for the interface with a capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer. The proposed ultrasound receiver chip enables the development of an in-probe digital beamforming imaging system. The flexibility of having two operation modes offers a high dynamic range with minimum power sacrifice. A prototype of the chip containing one receive channel, with one variable transimpedance amplifier (TIA) and one analog to digital converter (ADC) circuit is implemented. Combining variable gain TIA functionality with ADC gain settings achieves an enhanced overall high dynamic range, while low power dissipation is maintained. The chip is designed and fabricated in a 65 nm standard CMOS process technology. The test chip occupies an area of 76[Formula: see text] 170 [Formula: see text]. A total average power range of 60-240 [Formula: see text] for a sampling frequency of 30 MHz, and a center frequency of 5 MHz is measured. An instantaneous dynamic range of 50.5 dB with an overall dynamic range of 72 dB is obtained from the receiver circuit.