Hitachi, Ltd.

Fujifilm Healthcare Corporation

Shinta Takano

Hiroshi Masuzawa

Shinya Kajiyama

Mayumi Suzuki

Teiichiro Ikeda

Chizue Ishihara

Yoshihiro Hayashi

Hiroki Tanaka

Hiroshi Kakita

Kazuhiro Amino

A two-dimensional array ultrasound probe, which is enabled for ultrasonic reception operation of a continuous wave Doppler mode (C mode) and an imaging mode (B mode). The probe includes a reception circuit provided for each transducer and a first multiplexer; a plurality of first wires connected to the first multiplexer; a second wire connected to a plurality of first wires outside the array; switches that are provided to the second wire and that can be turned off to adapt to phasing addition units; a plurality of second multiplexers connected to the second wire and a plurality of first output ports for the first mode; and a plurality of second output ports that are connected to each region between the switches on the second wire and that are used in the second mode.

Ultrasound probe enabled for ultrasound reception operation of at least two modes

An ultrasonic probe includes: a plurality of transducers that perform electro-acoustic conversion on transmission pulses applied thereto to generate a transmission beam of ultrasonic waves; and transmission/reception circuits that are provided so as to correspond to each of the plurality of transducers. The transmission/reception circuits set transmission/reception switching timings at which the ultrasonic waves are switched from transmission to reception independently for each of the plurality of transducers.

Ultrasonic probe and ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus for image noise reduction by switching noise of the switching power supply to transmission

A plurality of transmission and reception circuits are connected to a plurality of vibration elements. The transmission and reception circuit includes a basic delay circuit and a fine delay circuit. The basic delay circuit delays a transmission signal and a reception signal for sub beamforming. The fine delay circuit is configured to be capable of performing delay finer than that of the basic delay circuit. A quantized delay error is compensated for by the fine delay circuit at the time of transmission.

Ultrasonic diagnostic device and ultrasonic probe

A transmitting beamformer performs convergence transmission that forms a transmission focus of an ultrasonic beam in a subject. A receiving beamformer comprises a virtual sound source method-based delay amount calculation part that obtains delay amount of a received signal with regarding the transmission focus as a virtual sound source, and a correction operation part that corrects the delay amount obtained by the virtual sound source method-based delay amount calculation part depending on position of imaging point. Delay amounts can be thereby obtained with good accuracy for imaging points in a wide area.

Ultrasound image pickup apparatus

An ultrasonic imaging apparatus includes an ultrasonic probe and a delay amount calculation unit. Each of the delay circuits is configured to allow a first delay amount and a second delay amount to be set for each of the delay circuits, and delays a signal by a delay amount obtained by adding the first delay amount and the second delay amount together. The delay amount calculation unit calculates the first delay amount and the second delay amount such that a sum of the first delay amount and the second delay amount set for each of the delay circuits is equal to or less than a predefined maximum delay amount.

Ultrasonic imaging device and ultrasonic probe

Reception beamforming that does not generate discontinuity in the vicinity of the depth of a transmit focus is executed even if reception scanning lines are disposed outside of the irradiation area of a focusing-type transmission beam. The degree of discontinuity showing the discontinuity of reception signals detected by plural ultrasound elementsor the degree of discontinuity regarding the discontinuity of the wave fronts of phased signals is detected by a discontinuity extracting unit. If there is an area where the degree of discontinuity is larger than a predefined value, a delay time generating unitfor discontinuity elimination changes the delay times in the area where the discontinuity is generated.

Ultrasound imaging pickup apparatus

Reception beamforming is executed using delay times that complexly vary in accordance with differences between transmission conditions. An irradiation areaof a transmission beam is calculated, and the lengths of segments, using which delay times are calculated, are set in accordance with the positional relationships between the calculated irradiation areaand reception scanning lines. For example, the reception scanning linesare divided into areas A to C, and the lengths of segmentsb in the outer area B located outside of the irradiation areaare set shorter than the lengths of segmentsa andc in the inner areas A and C.

There is provided an ultrasound imaging apparatus that can reduce vertical stripes even though a transmission interval is widened for high speed imaging. When a receiving unitreceives an instruction to perform a high speed imaging mode, an aperture synthesizing unitadds a predetermined number (N) of phase outputs obtained from the reflected ultrasonic waves of individual transmission beams at the same received focal points to reduce the occurrence of stripes on an image. In order to generate N phase outputs at each of the received focal points, a control unitfinds a necessary number (M) of the reception scanning lines to be set by the reception beam former, and notifies the reception beam formerof the number.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Shinta Takano