32-Channel transmit beamformer with high timing resolution for high-frequency ultrasound imaging systems

Duo Sheng; Sheng-Min Chan; Chun-Wei Lin; Chih-Chung Huang

doi:10.1063/1.5144933

32-Channel transmit beamformer with high timing resolution for high-frequency ultrasound imaging systems

Rev Sci Instrum. 2020 May 1;91(5):054701. doi: 10.1063/1.5144933.

Authors

Duo Sheng¹, Sheng-Min Chan¹, Chun-Wei Lin¹, Chih-Chung Huang²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Electrical Engineering, Fu Jen Catholic University, New Taipei City 24205, Taiwan.
² Department of Biomedical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan City 701, Taiwan.

PMID: 32486727
DOI: 10.1063/1.5144933

Abstract

This paper presents a 32-channel high timing resolution transmit-beamforming circuit for use in high-frequency ultrasound imaging systems. Conventional transmit-beamforming circuits are typically implemented using field-programmable gate array (FPGA) chips. However, it is difficult for FPGAs to provide high timing resolution to meet the beamforming requirements of high-frequency ultrasound imaging systems. The proposed transmit-beamforming design can generate stable and suitable delays to excite 32-channel array transducer elements without variations in the process, voltage, and temperature. In addition, the proposed low-complexity architecture can maintain the duty cycle of long prorogation signals with low hardware cost to meet the timing requirements of a large channel number array transducer. The proposed designed transmit beamformer uses 0.18-µm CMOS technology for a 30-MHz high-frequency linear array, and the simulation results show that the proposed transmit-beamforming application-specific integrated circuit can achieve a maximum time delay of 619.5 ns with a time resolution of 617 ps.