Fujifilm Sonosite, Inc.

Sonosite, Inc.

Sonosight, Inc.

Justin M Coughlin

Blake W Little

William R Ogle

Mitchell S Kaplan

Michael R Hansen

Thomas M Duffy

Juin-Jet Hwang

Clinton T Siedenburg

Andrew Lundberg

Lauren S Pflugrath

Steven G Danielson

John R Stice

Yanwei Wang

Larry Greisel

Max Nielsen

Davin Dhatt

Geoffrey Hugh Jones

Jacques Souquet

Methods and apparatuses for dynamic power reduction in ultrasound systems are described. Subsystems including a first subsystem to be placed in a reduced power consumption state are determined. The first subsystem includes a receive path having a receiver to receive acoustic signals representing echoes. A control subsystem to control clocking of the receive path in response to at least one of a plurality of real-time signals is determined. The control subsystem is configured to provide one or more clocks to the receive path to turn on the receiver while valid echo signals are expected to arrive at the receiver At least one of the plurality of real-time signals indicates a state of imaging operations. The control subsystem is configured to provide one or more clocks to the receive path during a first mode based on the state of the imaging operations.

Dynamic power reduction technique for ultrasound systems

A dynamic power reduction method and apparatus for use in an ultrasound system are described. In one embodiment, the ultrasound system comprises: a transducer assembly and imaging subsystem having a transmit data path having a transmitter to transmit acoustic signals and a receive data path having including signal acquisition circuitry with a receiver to receive acoustic signals representing echoes; a plurality of real-time signals indicative of status of imaging operations being performed by the transmit and receive paths; a clock generator to generate one or more clocks for use by the transmit and receive data paths; clock gating circuitry coupled to the clock generator and the transmit and receive paths and having circuits to gate clocks to at least one of the transmit and receive paths; and a clock gating controller coupled to the clock gating circuitry to control the circuits to gate or pass clock signals to at least one of the transmit and receive paths automatically in response to receipt of one or more signals from the plurality of real-time signals.

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.

Tunable ultrasound transmitter

Disclosed are systems and methods which efficiently control storage of and/or access to data which includes repetitive data or data which is used by different modes, processes, etcetera. Embodiments provide control for storage of and/or access to large amounts of data used in ultrasound system beam forming for image generation using a hierarchy of sequencers for controlling storage of and/or access to data. A frame sequencer may provide control at a frame level while an address sequencer is implemented to provide control at a data access level.

Systems for ultrasound beam forming data control

Systems and methods for ultrasound beam forming data control

A portable ultrasonic diagnostic instrument including an array transducer, a beamformer, signal processing and imaging circuitry, and a display for the processed echo signals operates on no more than 25 watts of electrical power. Circuit functions can be selecting attend depending on mode of operation of the instrument to thereby reduce power consumption. Further, a power monitor and control can monitor electrical current from a battery power source, and when power consumption reaches a pre-determined level the power monitor and control further alters one or more functional units in the instrument including display mode of operation, clock frequency for analog to digital conversion and signal processing, color signal processing, and 3D signal processing. Power consumption can be monitored against two or more pre-determined levels wherein instrument functional units or mode of operation are altered depending on which level of power consumption has been reached. In an instrument with an analog beamformer power consumption can be limited to 10 watts, whereas in a digital beamformer instrument power consumption can be limited to no more than 25 watts.

Low power portable ultrasonic diagnostic instrument

A hand held ultrasonic instrument is provided in a portable unit which performs both B mode and Doppler imaging. The instrument includes a transducer array mounted in a hand-held enclosure, with an integrated circuit transceiver connected to the elements of the array for the reception of echo signals. A digital signal processing circuit performs both B mode and Doppler signal processing such as filtering, detection and Doppler estimation, as well as advanced functions such as assembly of multiple zone focused scanlines, synthetic aperture formation, depth dependent filtering, speckle reduction, flash suppression, and frame averaging.

Ultrasonic signal processor for a hand held ultrasonic diagnostic

A hand held ultrasonic instrument is provided in a portable unit which performs both B mode and Doppler imaging. The instrument includes a transducer array mounted in a hand-held enclosure, with an integrated circuit transceiver connected to the elements of the array for the reception of echo signals. A digital beamformer is located in the hand-held enclosure for forming ultrasonic scanlines from the echo signals received by the elements of the array.

Hand held ultrasonic diagnostic instrument with digital beamformer

Growing community of inventors

Bothell, WA, United States of America

Justin M Coughlin