CW beam former in an ASIC
View Patent ↗The present invention relates to a continuous wave Doppler beam former application specific integrated circuit (CW-ASIC). The beam former may be a transmit or receive beam former. In one mode the CW-ASIC applies to a continuous wave Doppler beam former application specific integrated circuit for use in a diagnostic medical ultrasound system comprising a plurality of channels forming a CW analog receive path wherein each channel is connected with a digital beam former, the plurality of channels are mixed down in quadrature to base band using a mixer and a local oscillator (LO) generated in quadrature, the outputs of said mixer are summed and wall/high pass filtered to provide a beam formed base band signal, and a sub circuit providing a digital serial control function to interface to a real time control bus providing per channel enable/disable of said mixer and said local oscillator generator, and local oscillator delay as well as global local oscillator frequency select, said digital serial control also having an external delay enable signal to start said LO generators and synchronize all the internal LO delays. The beam former on an ASIC also includes a ultrasound system on a ASIC.
1. An ultrasound system application specific integrated circuit (US-ASIC) having at least one beam former, a transducer controller, one or more digital signal processor(s), and a plurality of input/output channels for linking to at least one memory means, a power control system, a transducer and a user interface.
2. The US-ASIC of claim 1 , wherein said at least one beam former comprises:
a transmit beam former and a receive beam former.
3. The US-ASIC of claim 2 , wherein said transmit beam former and said receive beam former draw from a single master clock path for precise timing.
4. The US-ASIC of claim 1 , further comprising: analog to digital and digital to analog converters.