DELTA DELAY APPROACH FOR ULTRASOUND BEAMFORMING ON AN ASIC

• US 20140243676A1
• Filed: 02/28/2013
• Published: 08/28/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 02/28/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: General Electric Company
• Original Assignee: General Electric Company
• Inventors: Cogan, Scott D., Bauer, Lukas
• Granted Patent: US 9,439,625 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 600/459
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/4444 related to the probe
• CPC Class Codes: G10K 11/346 using phase variation

Abstract

Systems are disclosed for ultrasound beamforming on an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC). In certain embodiments, the system includes an ultrasound probe that includes a plurality of transducer elements electrically coupled to an ASIC. The ASIC includes a plurality of waveform generators electrically coupled to a plurality of delay units. Each delay unit receives a waveform from a waveform generator or an adjacent delay unit, applies a delay to the waveform, and outputs the waveform to adjacent delay units, one or more of the plurality of transducer elements, or both. The delays that are provided to waveforms before being output to a transducer element determine the beamforming characteristics of the ultrasonic pulses generated by the ultrasound probe.

Claims

1. An ultrasound probe, comprising:

a plurality of transducer elements; and

an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) coupled to the plurality of transducer elements, wherein the ASIC comprises;

a plurality of delay units; and

one or more of waveform generators, each respective waveform generator configured to generate and transmit a waveform with distinct parameters to at least one of the plurality of delay units, wherein each respective delay unit receives the waveform from one of the plurality of waveform generators or an adjacent delay unit, applies a delay to the waveform, and outputs a delayed waveform to adjacent delay units.

2. The ultrasound probe of claim 1, wherein the distinct parameters comprise one or more of waveform shape or waveform timing delay.

3. The ultrasound probe of claim 1, wherein the delay units utilize flip-flop circuits to apply the delay to the waveform.

4. The ultrasound probe of claim 1, wherein the delay units apply a selectable delay to the waveform.

5. The ultrasound probe of claim 1, wherein the delay units apply a hardware-associated delay to the waveform.

6. The ultrasound probe of claim 5, wherein each delay unit of the array of delay units comprises a local sync flip-flop to remove the hardware-associated delay from the waveform.

7. The ultrasound probe of claim 1, comprising a plurality of multiplexors configured to control passing of the waveform from the waveform generators to the plurality of delay units.

8. The ultrasound probe of claim 1, wherein a subset of the plurality of delay units is capable of receiving the waveform from more than one waveform generator.

9. The ultrasound probe of claim 1, wherein the plurality of delay units comprises at least one column of delay units on the periphery of the ASIC, and wherein each of the delay units is configured to provide the waveform to a corresponding row of delay units.

10. The ultrasound probe of claim 1, wherein the plurality of waveform generators is directly electrically coupled to a subset of delay units on the periphery of the ASIC.

11. The ultrasound probe of claim 1, wherein each delay unit distributes the delayed waveforms in a first dimension on the periphery of the ASIC and subsequently distributes the waveforms in a second dimension.

12. The ultrasound probe of claim 1, wherein a global waveform input line extends to multiple delay units on one or more rows of the array of delay units, one or more columns of the array of delay units, or a combination thereof.

13. The ultrasound probe of claim 1, wherein the number of waveform generators is less than the number of delay units.

14. The ultrasound probe of claim 1, wherein the ratio of waveform generators to delay units is less than 1:

5.

15. The ultrasound probe of claim 1, wherein the ratio of waveform generators to delay units is less than 1:

20.

16. The ultrasound probe of claim 1, wherein only a portion of the delay units receive the delayed waveform from one of the plurality of waveform generators.

17. The ultrasound probe of claim 1, wherein the delay units make delayed waveforms available to one or more of the plurality of transducer elements.

18. The ultrasound probe of claim 1, wherein plurality of transducer elements comprises a 2D array.

19. An ultrasound probe, comprising:

a plurality of transducer elements;

a plurality of delay units, wherein each delay unit is electrically coupled to one or more of the plurality of transducer elements and wherein each delay unit is configured to receive a waveform signal and output the waveform signal to one or more of the plurality of transducer elements and to at least one adjacent delay unit; and

a plurality of waveform generators configured to transmit the waveform signal to one or more delay units.

20. The ultrasound probe of claim 19, wherein the waveform signal comprises parameters defining a waveform shape or waveform timing delay.

21. The ultrasound probe of claim 20, wherein the timing delay ranges from 0°

to 135°

.

22. The ultrasound probe of claim 20, wherein at least a portion of the plurality of delay units apply a selectable delay to the waveform signal before the waveform signal is output to the at least one adjacent delay unit.

23. The ultrasound probe of claim 22, wherein the delay units utilize one or more series of one or more flip-flop circuits to apply the selectable delay to the waveform signal.

24. The ultrasound probe of claim 22, wherein the delay units comprise a multiplexor after each series of flip-flop circuits configured to select either a waveform signal that has been delayed by the corresponding flip-flop circuits, or a waveform signal that has bypassed the flip-flop circuits to be sent to the next series of flip-flop circuits or the output of the delay unit.

25. The ultrasound probe of claim 22, wherein the delay units comprise a plurality of multiplexors each configured to select one of a plurality of waveform signals output from each flip-flop of the series of one or more flip-flop circuits and output the waveform signal to the at least one adjacent delay units or one of the plurality of transducer elements.

26. A system, comprising:

a probe for use with an ultrasound system, the probe comprising;

an array of transducer elements;

one or more waveform generators configured to generate a plurality of delay-differentiated waveforms; and

a plurality of delay units configured to receive one of the plurality of delay-differentiated waveforms, add a selectable incremental delay, and generate a delayed waveform available to one or more adjacent delay units and the array of transducer elements; and

an imaging system communicatively coupled to the probe via a bidirectional conduit.

27. The system of claim 26, comprising a second plurality of delay units configured to receive one of the plurality of delay-differentiated waveforms, and make a zero delayed waveform available to one or more adjacent delay units and the array of transducer elements.