Siemens Aktiengesellschaft

Peter Wegener

Dietrich Hassler

Erhard Schmidt

An ultrasound apparatus has a transducer array which includes a number of individual transducer, each transducer having a channel exclusively associated therewith. In an input stage for the ultrasound apparatus, an analog stage is provided in each channel to which the echo signals for a transducer associated with that channel are supplied. This analog stage concludes with an analog-to-digital converter in each channel. The output of the analog-to-digital converter is connected to a further processing circuit in each channel for the acquisition of Doppler signals of moving target echoes. A combined ultrasound imaging device and Doppler device is thus achieved, which allows the acquisition of Doppler signals with the digital input technology of the ultrasound imaging processing circuit. This permits expansion of digital operating RF input components of imaging devices to include Doppler signal processing.

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Erlangen, Germany

Peter Wegener