An ultrasound diagnostic apparatus including an ultrasound probe which outputs transmission ultrasound corresponding to a drive signal, which receives reflected ultrasound from the subject and which outputs a received signal according to the reflected ultrasound; a drive signal outputter which outputs the drive signal to the ultrasound probe; a hardware processor which controls the drive signal outputter to output a first drive signal having a first drive waveform and a second drive signal having a second drive waveform that is different from the first drive waveform; a received signal generator which generates a first received signal based on the reflected ultrasound corresponding to the transmission ultrasound that is output based on the first drive signal and a second received signal based on the reflected ultrasound corresponding to the transmission ultrasound that is output based on the second drive signal; and an extractor which extracts by arithmetic of the first received signal and the second received signal a received signal component which to be used in imaging. Frequency spectrums of the first drive signal and the second drive signal have a first intensity peak on a low frequency side of a center frequency of the transmission frequency, a second intensity peak on a high frequency side of the center frequency and a third intensity peak at a frequency between a frequency corresponding to the first intensity peak and a frequency corresponding to the second intensity peak, in a frequency band included in a transmission frequency band at −20 dB of the ultrasound probe.

Ultrasound signal processing circuitry and related apparatus and methods are described. Signal samples received from an ultrasound transducer array in an ultrasound transducer based imaging system may be processed, or conditioned, by application of one or more weighting functions. In some embodiments, one or more weighting functions may be applied to the signal samples in the time domain. In other embodiments, the signal samples may be converted to the frequency domain and one or more weighting functions may be applied in the frequency domain. In further embodiments, one or more weighting functions may be applied in the time domain and one or more weighting functions may be applied in the frequency domain. The weighting functions may be channel dependent and/or channel independent. The processed data can be provided to an image formation processor.

Fresnel elevation focusing at a selected elevation angle is performed by transmitting a sequential set of Fresnel-focused ultrasound pulses, where a different Fresnel phase pattern is used for each pulse, and where the receive signals are coherently compounded. The different Fresnel patterns cause the secondary lobe energy to be reduced via averaging of variations of the pressure fields in the secondary lobe regions. In some embodiments, the method of coherently compounded Fresnel focusing is combined with coherently compounded defocused wave (e.g. plane wave or diverging wave) imaging in the azimuth direction. Each of the elevation slices are collected by changing the Fresnel patterns respectively employed when the sequence of plane waves or diverging waves are transmitted, such that the coherent compounding can benefit both planes simultaneously. Hadamard receive encoding and subsequent dynamic receive beamforming may be employed to further improve performance in the elevation direction.

Circuitry for ultrasound devices is described. A multi-level pulser is described, which can support time-domain and spatial apodization. The multi-level pulser may be controlled through a software-defined waveform generator. In response to the execution of a computer code, the waveform generator may access master segments from a memory, and generate a stream of packets directed to pulsing circuits. The stream of packets may be serialized. A plurality of decoding circuits may modulate the streams of packets to obtain spatial apodization.

Circuitry for ultrasound devices is described. A multi-level pulser is described, which can support time-domain and spatial apodization. The multi-level pulser may be controlled through a software-defined waveform generator. In response to the execution of a computer code, the waveform generator may access master segments from a memory, and generate a stream of packets directed to pulsing circuits. The stream of packets may be serialized. A plurality of decoding circuits may modulate the streams of packets to obtain spatial apodization.

Circuitry for ultrasound devices is described. A multilevel pulser is described, which can provide bipolar pulses of multiple levels. The multilevel pulser includes a pulsing circuit and pulser and feedback circuit. Symmetric switches are also described. The symmetric switches can be positioned as inputs to ultrasound receiving circuitry to block signals from the receiving circuitry.

Circuitry for ultrasound devices is described. A multilevel pulser is described, which can provide bipolar pulses of multiple levels. The multilevel pulser includes a pulsing circuit and pulser and feedback circuit. Symmetric switches are also described. The symmetric switches can be positioned as inputs to ultrasound receiving circuitry to block signals from the receiving circuitry.

In a method for receive beamforming using an array of ultrasonic transducers, a plurality of array positions comprising pluralities of ultrasonic transducers of the array of ultrasonic transducers is defined. A pixel capture operation is performed at each array position of the plurality of array positions. The pixel capture operation includes transmitting ultrasonic signals using a transmit beam pattern comprising ultrasonic transducers of the array of ultrasonic transducers, the transmit beam pattern for forming an ultrasonic beam toward a region of interest, and receiving reflected ultrasonic signals using a receive beam pattern comprising at least one ultrasonic transducer of the array of ultrasonic transducers. Received reflected ultrasonic signals are combined for a plurality of array positions overlapping the region of interest in a receive beamforming operation to generate a pixel for a reference array position of the plurality of array positions.

A dual-mode ultrasound system provides real-time imaging and therapy delivery using the same transducer elements of a transducer array. The system may use a multi-channel driver to drive the elements of the array. The system uses a real-time monitoring and feedback image control of the therapy based on imaging data acquired using the dual-mode ultrasound array (DMUA) of transducer elements. Further, for example, multi-modal coded excitation may be used in both imaging and therapy modes. Still further, for example, adaptive, real-time refocusing for improved imaging and therapy can be achieved using, for example, array directivity vectors obtained from DMUA pulse-echo data.

The use of power-efficient transmitters to establish acoustic wave energy having low undesirable harmonics is achieved by adjusting the transmitter output waveform to minimize the undesirable harmonics. In one embodiment, both the timing and slope of the waveform edges are adjusted to produce the desired output waveform having little or no second harmonics. In the embodiment, output waveform timing adjustments on the order of fractions of the system clock interval are provided. This then allows for very fine control of a coarsely produced waveform. In one embodiment, the user can select the fine tuning to match the transmitter output signal to a particular load transducer.