Automotive radar systems may employ a reconfigurable connection of antennas to radar transmitters and/or receivers. An illustrative embodiment of an automotive radar system includes: a radar transmitter; a radar receiver; and a digital signal processor coupled to the radar receiver to detect reflections of a signal transmitted by the radar transmitter and to derive signal measurements therefrom. At least one of the radar transmitter and the radar receiver are switchable to provide the digital signal processor with signals from each of multiple combinations of transmit antenna and receive antenna.

For phase inversion-based ultrasound imaging with a transmit and receive circuit at an array, a unipolar transmitter is used to reduce the number of high voltage wires. Rather than adding a T/R switch or increasing connections by connecting the receive amplifier to a different electrode than the transmitter, two different receive paths from the element to the receive amplifier are provided. One path is used where the unipolar transmitter ends in one state (e.g., 0V), and the other path is used where the unipolar transmitter ends in another state (e.g., Vtx).

The present invention discloses a transmitting and receiving device for an ultrasonic system, which comprises a transmitter, a receiver and at least two switch circuits connected in series. The transmitter is coupled to an ultrasonic transducer and generates high voltage signals to the ultrasonic transducer during a transmitting mode. The receiver is coupled to the ultrasonic transducer via the at least two switch circuits and receives low voltage signals from the ultrasonic transducer during a receiving mode. The at least two switch circuits are configured to share voltage drop of the high voltage signals to isolate the high voltage signals during the transmitting mode and allow the low voltage signals to pass through during the receiving mode. It also discloses an ultrasonic system having the transmitting and receiving device.

The ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to the present embodiment includes processing circuitry. The processing circuitry is configured to determine a scan region of an ultrasonic wave according to a scan target. The processing circuitry is configured to set a pulse repetition frequency for each raster of rasters so as to correspond to the scan region. The processing circuitry is configured to control a scan performance according to the pulse repetition frequency.

An adaptor device includes a first connector (106) configured to interface with an ultrasound probe and a second connector (108) configured to interface with an ultrasound console. An array of lines (120) connects the first connector to the second connector. A pulse generator or generators (110, 112) are configured to output trigger signals responsive to a signal on one or more of the array of lines. An external output (114, 116) is configured to output the trigger signals.

A microbeamformer integrated circuit has sixty-lour microbeaauCormer channels which may be utilized with a 64-element or 128-element array transducer. Each microbeamformer channel includes a transmitter, a plurality of connection points for selectively coupling the transmitter to one or more transducer elements, a transmit/receive switch coupled to an output of the transmitter, and a receive channel including a variable delay. The connection points may be configured with only one connection point coupled to a transducer element, two connection points coupled to the same transducer element, or multiple connection points coupled to multiple transducer elements. The transmitter may also comprise a separate pulser coupled to each connection point. The receive channels are grouped in groups of sixteen which may be selectively coupled to one of two channel drivers to provide partially beamformed signals to the channels of a system beamformer.

Aspects of the technology described herein relate to an ultrasound device including a first die that includes an ultrasonic transducer, a first application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) that is bonded to the first die and includes a pulser, and a second ASIC in communication with the second ASIC that includes integrated digital receive circuitry. In some embodiments, the first ASIC may be bonded to the second ASIC and the second ASIC may include analog processing circuitry and an analog-to-digital converter. In such embodiments, the second ASIC may include a through-silicon via (TSV) facilitating communication between the first ASIC and the second ASIC. In some embodiments, SERDES circuitry facilitates communication between the first ASIC and the second ASIC and the first ASIC includes analog processing circuitry and an analog-to-digital converter. In some embodiments, the technology node of the first ASIC is different from the technology node of the second ASIC.

Provided is an ultrasound apparatus including: a transmitter configured to generate and output a transmission signal; an ultrasound probe configured to convert the transmission signal output from the transmitter into an ultrasound signal and transmit the ultrasound signal to a target object, and receive an echo signal reflected from the target object and output a reception signal on the basis of the echo-signal; a transmission/reception switch configured to attenuate the transmission signal output from the transmitter and output the attenuated transmission signal, and output the reception signal output from the ultrasound probe; and a receiver configured to receive the attenuated and output transmission signal and the output reception signal, and detect transmission waveform information on the basis of the attenuated transmission signal.

Techniques describe structures and methods for generating larger output signals and improving image quality of ultrasonic sensors by inclusion of an acoustic cavity in the sensor stack. In some embodiments, an ultrasonic sensor unit may be tuned during manufacturing or during a provisioning phase to work with different thicknesses and materials. In some embodiments, a standing wave signal may be generated using an acoustic cavity in the ultrasonic sensor unit for capturing an ultrasonic image of an object placed on a sensor surface. In some implementations, the ultrasonic sensor may include an ultrasonic transmitter, a piezoelectric receiver, a thin film transistor (TFT) layer and a TFT substrate positioned between the transmitter and the receiver, one or more adhesive layers, and optional cover materials and coatings. The thickness, density and speed of sound of the sensor materials and associated adhesive attachment layers may be used to attain the desired acoustic cavity and improved performance.

Devices are disclosed for obtaining data of a sample, particularly data capable of being processed to produce an image of a region of the sample. An exemplary device includes a light-beam source, an acoustic-wave source, an optical element, and an acoustic detector. The optical element is transmissive to a light beam produced by the light-beam source and reflective to acoustic waves produced by the acoustic-wave source. The optical element is situated to direct the transmitted light beam and reflected acoustic wave simultaneously along an optical axis to be incident at a situs in or on a sample to cause the sample to produce acoustic echoes from the incident acoustic waves while also producing photoacoustic waves from the incident light beam photoacoustically interacting with the situs. The acoustic detector is placed to receive and detect the acoustic echoes and the photoacoustic waves from the situs. The acoustic detector can comprise one or more hydrophones exploiting the acousto-electric effect.