A Column-Row-Parallel Ultrasound Imaging Architecture for 3-D Plane-Wave Imaging and Tx Second-Order Harmonic...

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Medical Imaging Technology
• Ultrasound Physics

Background:

• Current 3-D ultrasound systems face challenges in power consumption, frame rate, and resolution.
• Integrated front-end architectures are crucial for miniaturization and improved performance in medical imaging devices.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and validate a novel column-row-parallel imaging front-end architecture for low-power, integrated 3-D medical ultrasound.
• To enhance volumetric imaging capabilities, including frame rate, lateral resolution, and fault tolerance.

Main Methods:

• Designed and fabricated a capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT)-application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) column-row-parallel prototype.
• Implemented a 3-D plane-wave coherent compounding algorithm for volumetric data acquisition.
• Utilized an interleaved checkerboard pattern with in-phase and quadrature excitations to mitigate CMUT distortion.

Main Results:

• Achieved a fast frame rate of 62.5 Hz for volumetric imaging with a field of view of 2.3 mm (azimuth/elevation) x 8.5 mm (depth).
• Demonstrated a 46% improvement in lateral resolution using 10-angle compounding.
• Reduced CMUT second-harmonic distortion by up to 25 dB while maintaining a 3-dB fundamental energy reduction.

Conclusions:

• The proposed column-row-parallel architecture enables efficient, high-performance 3-D medical ultrasound imaging.
• The architecture supports scalable performance for larger array sizes and improved imaging depths.
• The distortion reduction technique enhances image quality by minimizing nonlinear effects in both transducers and circuits.