CMOS ultrasonic analogue front-end with reconfigurable pulser/switch for medical imaging applications

• Published in: Electronics letters Vol. 51; no. 20; pp. 1564 - 1566
• Main Author: Cha, H.-K
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: The Institution of Engineering and Technology 01.10.2015
• Subjects: AFE integrated circuit; Analogue; bandwidth 5 MHz; Biomedical technology; capacitive micromachined ultrasound transducer; capacitive transducers; Circuits; CMOS; CMOS analogue integrated circuits; CMOS ultrasonic analogue front‐end; frequency 2.6 MHz; highly integrated bidirectional analogue front‐end circuit; HV isolation switch; Integrated circuits; low noise amplifiers; low‐power electronics; low‐power low‐noise preamplifier; medical image processing; Medical imaging; medical imaging applications; micromachining; preamplifiers; Pulse generators; receive path circuits; reconfigurable high‐voltage pulser; reconfigurable pulser/switch; size 0.18 mum; standard CMOS process; Switches; Transducers; transimpedance gain; transmit mode; ultrasonic imaging; ultrasonic transducers; voltage 1.65 V; micromachining; voltage 1.65 V; highly integrated bidirectional analogue front-end circuit; preamplifiers; AFE integrated circuit; capacitive micromachined ultrasound transducer; reconfigurable pulser/switch; standard CMOS process; capacitive transducers; CMOS analogue integrated circuits; medical image processing; size 0.18 mum; transimpedance gain; reconfigurable high-voltage pulser; medical imaging applications; low-power low-noise preamplifier; HV isolation switch; bandwidth 5 MHz; low noise amplifiers; frequency 2.6 MHz; transmit mode; CMOS ultrasonic analogue front-end; low-power electronics; ultrasonic imaging; ultrasonic transducers; receive path circuits
• ISSN: 0013-5194; 1350-911X; 1350-911X
• DOI: 10.1049/el.2015.2440

A highly integrated bidirectional analogue front-end (AFE) circuit for interfacing capacitive micromachined ultrasound transducer in medical imaging systems is presented. The proposed AFE features a reconfigurable high-voltage (HV) pulser which generates over 15 V pulses at 2.6 MHz in the transmit mode and also operates as an HV isolation switch for the receive path circuits, thereby saving significant silicon area. The AFE also includes a low-power low-noise preamplifier which achieves 103 dBΩ transimpedance gain at 2.6 and 5 MHz bandwidth while operating at 1.65 V supply voltage. The AFE integrated circuit (IC) is implemented using 0.18 µm standard CMOS process and the total area of the single-channel core is 0.052 mm2 which is more than 65% of size reduction in comparison to previous work.