Hitachi, Ltd.

Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Hitachi-high-technologies Corporation

Adv Antest Corporation

Canon Inc.

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation

Hitachi Instrument Engineering Co., Ltd.

Other

Haruo Yoda

Mari Nozoe

Mitsuji Ikeda

Shunji Maeda

Maki Tanaka

Masato Muraki

Takashi Hiroi

Yasutsugu Usami

Aritoshi Sugimoto

Atsuko Takafuji

Kimiaki Ando

Atsushi Takane

Shoji Yoshida

Hideo Todokoro

Hiroyuki Shinada

Mitsugu Sato

Yutaka Kaneko

Yusuke Yajima

Hitoshi Kubota

Makoto Ezumi

Katsuhiro Kuroda

Fumio Mizuno

Norio Saitou

Katsuya Sugiyama

Kazushi Yoshimura

Hiroshi Tooyama

Tadao Ino

Hiroya Ohta

Fumio Murai

Yukinobu Shibata

Hajime Kawano

Shinji Okazaki

Yoshikiyo Yui

Katsuya Oikawa

Masahiro Watanabe

Chie Shishido

Yasunari Sohda

Takanori Ninomiya

Yoshinori Nakayama

Kenichi Nagae

Asahiro Kuni

Hideaki Doi

Yuji Inoue

Hiroyuki Shinoda

Koji Nagata

Takafumi Miyatake

Koyo Katsura

Shinichi Hashimoto

Takashi Hotta

Ryo Fujita

Yoshihiko Okamoto

Hidenori Inouchi

Keisuke Nakashima

Masahide Okumura

Yasuhiko Ozawa

Masakazu Ejiri

Hiroshi Sakou

Jun Motoike

Masaki Hosoda

Shin-ichi Hashimoto

Yasunari Souda

Tadao Konishi

Akira Hirakawa

Syoji Yoshida

Ikuo Takada

Minoru Wakita

Masato Kamada

Masamichi Kawano

Shigeru Shibukawa

Hitoshi Matsushima

Kazuhiko Fukutani

Takeshi Kawasaki

Hiroyuki Itoh

Hiroyuki Takahashi

Tomonori Nakano

Seiji Kashioka

Osamu Kamimura

Hidetoshi Satoh

Susumu Ozasa

Sayaka Tanimoto

Michihiro Mese

Kotoko Hirose

Akinori Shibayama

Tadahito Matsuda

Sadahiro Ikeda

Yoshitaka Baba

Masayoshi Kameyama

Tsuneo Okubo

Shin'ichi Hashimoto

Yozo Ohuchi

Hiroshi Ouchi

Akira Tsukizoe

Minpai Fujinami

An object information acquiring apparatus is provided that includes: a plurality of receiving elements which receive an acoustic wave that propagates from an object, and which convert the acoustic wave to a reception signal; an adaptive beamformer that performs adaptive beamforming of adjusting reception directionality in accordance with the reception signal in use of the reception signal; a delay-and-sum beamformer that performs delay-and-sum beamforming having preset directionality in use of the reception signal; an amplitude modulator that uses one output signal of one of the adaptive beamformer and the delay-and-sum beamformer, to perform amplitude modulation on an output signal of the other one of the beamformers; and a generator that, on the basis of a signal outputted by the amplitude modulator, generates image data on the interior of the object.

Object information acquiring apparatus, information processing apparatus and object information acquiring method

Provided is an object information acquiring apparatus including a probe having a plurality of receiving elements that are arrayed along a first direction and receive an acoustic wave generated from an object irradiated with light from a light source and converting the acoustic wave into an electrical signal, a scanner that moves the probe in the first direction, a controller, and a generator that generates image data of inside of the object based on the electrical signal. The controller controls the apparatus such that light is emitted each time the probe is moved by a distance that is either (n+1/k) times or (n&#x2212;1/k) times an array pitch between the receiving elements, where n is an integer of 1 or more and k is an integer of 2 or more.

Object information acquiring apparatus and method of controlling same

The present invention employs an object information acquiring apparatus comprising a plurality of receiving elements which receive acoustic waves emitted from an object and convert the acoustic waves into received signals, a delay unit which matches phases of the received signals, a complex converter which converts the received signals into complex signals, a complex covariance matrix calculator which periodically obtains a complex covariance matrix by using a complex signal group configured from a plurality of phase-matched complex signals, an eliminator which eliminates the number of bits of input data configured from at least either the complex signal group or matrix elements, and an electric power calculator which calculates a power of target positions, wherein the eliminator eliminates the number of bits by performing common level conversion processing on all input data relating to one complex covariance matrix.

Object information acquiring apparatus

A signal processing circuit respectively transforms complex covariance matrices, which are consecutively inputted at a predetermined period, into upper triangular matrices. The signal processing circuit includes: a storage unit that stores at least N-number of complex covariance matrices; a reading unit that reads matrix elements of the stored complex covariance matrices; a CORDIC calculation circuit that implements a CORDIC algorithm by a pipelined circuit system; and a QR decomposition unit that controls the reading unit and the CORDIC calculation circuit unit to calculate an upper triangular matrix by iteratively using the CORDIC calculation circuit unit on a single complex covariance matrix and that calculates in parallel a transformation of N-number of complex covariance matrices into upper triangular matrices in an interleaved format.

Signal processing circuit and ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus

There is used an object information acquiring apparatus including a probe for electrically scanning an object in first direction and mechanically scanning in second direction intersecting with the first direction, a first delay-and-sum unit for operating a delay-and-sum on a received signal, a memory for storing a first delay-and-sum signal for each plane in the second direction, a selecting unit for selecting signals corresponding to M sectional planes from among the stored signals, a second delay-and-sum unit for operating a delay-and-sum on the selected signals in the second direction, and a unit for acquiring image in the object from the second delay-and-sum signal, the second delay-and-sum unit switching, according to the mechanical scanning, a first case in which M signals are fixed and a delay pattern is varied and a second case in which a set of the M signals is varied and the delay pattern is fixed.

Generally, as the time for mechanical scanning of an acoustic wave receiver increases, the load on an examinee also increases. The present invention provides the calculation of a target speed at which an acoustic wave receiver is caused to move for the measurement of an acoustic wave, using data of an emission period of pulsed light and data of an interval between target measurement positions in a subject being examined. In addition, the acoustic wave receiver is caused to move so as to reach an initial target measurement position at the target speed at a time when initial pulsed light for measuring an acoustic wave is emitted. After the target speed has been reached, the acoustic wave receiver is caused to move at a uniform speed which is equal to the target speed.

Measurement apparatus, movement control method, and program

There is provided a received data processing apparatus of photoacoustic tomography including a minimum constitution unit data composition unit that sequentially reads receiving digital signals from first storage units and composes minimum constitution unit data of the acoustic wave of the minimum constitution units by performing a delay-and-sum processing. A second storage unit stores the minimum constitution unit data of the entire region of the specimen, and an image construction unit constructs an image of the specimen based on the minimum constitution unit data stored in the second storage unit. A control unit sequentially stores the minimum constitution unit data calculated by the minimum constitution unit data composition unit in the second storage unit and reads the stored minimum constitution unit data of the entire region of the specimen to transmit the minimum constitution unit data to the image construction unit.

Received data processing apparatus of photoacoustic tomography

The present invention enables ultrasonic propagation time values after correction of refraction to be calculated in parallel for each receive channel, by using a recurrence relation in the depth direction. Moreover, accumulation of errors can be avoided by using an accurate propagation time value obtained in advance at a reference depth to correct the propagation time value each time the reference depth is reached. For this error correction, the recurrence relation to calculate the propagation time value can be an approximate expression. For example, the propagation time value can be calculated using the inclination of reference propagation time values between reference depths. In an actual circuit, received signals are sequentially stored in a memory, and a receive beam is formed by calculating an address position corresponding to the propagation time value of the ultrasonic wave, and adding the received signals stored in the calculated addresses.

Ultrasonic imaging apparatus and method of controlling delay

Provided is a measuring apparatus, including: a moving mechanism for moving a probe in an elevation direction; a first delay and sum circuit for performing delay and sum of reception signals at individual positions along the elevation direction to output a first add signal; a signal extraction circuit for letting an output of the first delay and sum circuit to pass through delay circuits to output in parallel first add signals obtained at different positions; a second delay and sum circuit for performing delay and sum of the first add signals output from the signal extraction circuit to output a second add signal; and an image processing circuit for generating image data by using the second add signal. Accordingly, image resolution in the elevation direction may be improved with a simple structure without deteriorating an image obtaining speed in the measuring apparatus for obtaining an ultrasonic image.

Measuring apparatus

An object information acquiring apparatus including: a plurality of receiving elements receiving an acoustic wave propagating from an object and converting the acoustic wave into an electrical signal; a delaying unit aligning phases of electrical signals of M (a positive integer) channels outputted from the plurality of receiving elements; an eliminator reducing the electrical signals of the M channels to electrical signals of L channels (L&#x3c;M); a calculator calculating Nb output signals corresponding to low-frequency components of a complex signal based on the electrical signals outputted from the eliminator; and a signal processor performing beam formation according to adaptive signal processing using output signals outputted from the calculator, where positive integers M, L, and Nb satisfy M&#x3e;L&#x3e;=2(Nb&#x2212;1).

An acoustic wave imaging apparatus has a phase aligning unit, which aligns phases of received signals obtained by a plurality of acoustic wave receiving elements. A complex signal acquiring unit generates complex signals out of the phase aligned received signals, and a correlation matrix calculating unit calculates a correlation matrix of the complex signals. An electric power calculating unit calculates constrained minimum power of the received signals, using the correlation matrix and a predetermined constraint vector. The correlation matrix calculating unit calculates the correlation matrix at a predetermined cycle, and sequentially outputs the calculated correlation matrix to the electric power calculating unit at a predetermined cycle, and the electric power calculating unit calculates a plurality of constrained minimum powers in parallel using the calculated correlation matrices, the plurality of constrained minimum powers corresponding to the correlation matrices respectively.

Acoustic wave imaging apparatus and acoustic wave imaging method

A bioinformation acquisition apparatus to input a signal having uniform sensitivity and a high SN ratio at a high speed is provided. It includes a moving device moving an element group into the arrangement direction of the elements, and moves the element group situated at a first position at first time point to be situated at a second position at second time point. The element group receives an elastic wave emitted from a test object at the first time point at the first position, and the elastic wave from the test object at the second time point at the second position. The electric signal of a specified position of a test body from a first element of the elastic waves received at the first time point and the electric signal of the specified position from a second element received at the second time point are added to each other.

Photoacoustic imaging apparatus

An exposure apparatus which draws a pattern on a substrate with a charged particle beam is disclosed. The exposure apparatus includes a blanker which controls, in accordance with a dose pattern including a plurality of pulses, whether to allow a charged particle beam to strike the substrate, and a controller which executes calibration for correcting the dose pattern to obtain a pattern having the target line width.

Charged particle beam exposure apparatus

High-contrast exposure is performed by use of a small dose of electron beams, a pattern is formed on a wafer with high accuracy, and high-precision inspection is performed. In pattern formation, proximity effect correction processing is performed. Moreover, exposure of electron beams is performed based on a result of filtering using an inverse characteristic of exposure characteristics of the electron beams. Furthermore, in pattern inspection, electron beams are irradiated based on a result of filtering for obtaining a peripheral region of an edge of the pattern formed.

Electron beam apparatus and method of generating an electron beam irradiation pattern

A circuit pattern inspection method and an apparatus therefore, in which the whole of a portion to be inspected of a sample to be inspected is made to be in a predetermined changed state, the portion to be inspected is irradiated with an image-forming high-density electron beam while scanning the electron beam, secondary charged particles are detected at a portion irradiated with the electron beam after a predetermined period of time from an instance when the electron beam is irradiated, an image is formed on the basis of the thus detected secondary charged particle signal, and the portion to be inspected is inspected by using the thus formed image.

Method and apparatus for inspecting integrated circuit pattern

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Nishitama-gun, Japan

Haruo Yoda