Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi Medical Corporation

Renesas Technology Corp.

Nec Corporation

Elpida Memory, Inc.

Hitachi Cable, Inc.

Fujifilm Healthcare Corporation

Renesas Eastern Japan Semiconductor, Inc.

Ricoh Printing Systems Co., Ltd.

Tatsuya Nagata

Yasuhiro Yoshimura

Shuntaro Machida

Ryuji Kohno

Hiroya Shimizu

Michihiro Watanabe

Masatoshi Kanamaru

Akifumi Sako

Takehiko Yamada

Toshio Miyatake

Hideo Miura

Makoto Kitano

Yoshishige Endo

Hideyuki Aoki

Atsushi Hosogane

Eiichi Hara

Naoaki Yamashita

Toshiyuki Mine

Takashi Azuma

Satoshi Nakamura

Takanori Aono

Hiroyuki Enomoto

Hiroshi Fukuda

Hiromichi Suzuki

Akihiro Yaguchi

Shinichiro Umemura

Yoshitaka Tadaki

Naotaka Tanaka

Daisuke Ryuzaki

Tetsuo Kumazawa

Akihiko Ariga

Yuji Wada

Katsunori Asafusa

Taiichi Takezaki

Masaaki Namba

Seiji Miyamoto

Masayoshi Tsugane

Takashi Kobayashi

Hiroshi Ikeda

Mitsuaki Katagiri

Hiroki Tanaka

Hideaki Takahashi

Toshio Sugano

Hidekazu Kohira

Shin-ichiro Umemura

Naoya Kanda

Atsushi Kazama

Shunichi Oohara

Osamu Machida

Shogo Matsumoto

Takashi Fujimura

Hideshi Fukumoto

Kazuhiko Nakagawa

Yuko Hanaoka

Takashi Iida

Masahiro Seido

Takeshi Terasaki

Jun Nagata

Masaharu Imazato

Hideko Ando

Kensuke Tsuneda

Toshihiro Matsunaga

Shigetoshi Hiratsuka

Syuntaro Machida

Kenji Kawakami

Kazuytaka Sato

A capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducerA includes: a silicon substratean insulating filmformed over the silicon substratea lower electrode; insulating filmsanda cavityconstituted by a void formed in a portion of the insulating filman upper electrodeinsulating filmsandand a protective filmIn addition, the insulating filmupper electrodeinsulating filmand insulating filmabove the cavityconfigure a vibration filmand the protective filmabove the vibration filmis divided into a plurality of isolated patterns regularly arranged with a gaphaving a constant spacing formed therebetween.

Capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer and ultrasonic imaging apparatus using the same

The present invention addresses the problem of enlarging a sensing area in an ultrasonic probe so as to achieve a higher definition. This ultrasonic diagnostic equipment is provided with an ultrasonic probe that comprises: a CMUT chip () that has drive electrodes ()-(), etc., arranged in a grid-like configuration on a rectangular CMUT element section (); and a CMUT chip () that has drive electrodes ()-(), etc., arranged in a grid-like configuration on the rectangular CMUT element section (), that is adjacent to the CMUT chip (), and in which the drive electrodes ()-() of the adjacent CMUT chip () are electrically connected to the respective drive electrodes ()-() via bonding wires ()-(), etc.

Semiconductor sensor chip, semiconductor sensor chip array, and ultrasound diagnostic apparatus

A structure that prevents a substrate from being warped is provided on a region or a location other than a membrane that determines the characteristics of a CMUT. In a CMUT in a structure in which a first conductive layer and a second conductive layer are provided sandwiching a cavity on a substrate, for example, as a warpage prevention structure, a warpage prevention layer that prevents the substrate from being warped is provided between the substrate and the first conductive film. When the insulating film disposed between the cavity and the first conductive film and the insulating film disposed between the cavity and the second conductive film are silicon oxide films, the warpage prevention layer includes a silicon nitride film.

Ultrasonic transducer, method for making same, ultrasonic transducer array, and ultrasonic test apparatus

In order to obtain a high-resolution ultrasound diagnostic image while reducing the back side reflection of a ultrasound irradiated to the side opposite to the ultrasound transmission direction of an ultrasound transmission/reception device, disclosed is an ultrasound probe, wherein a substrate is provided thereon with a cavity, insulation layers having the cavity therebetween, and an upper layer electrode and a lower layer electrode having the cavity and the insulation layers therebetween, so as to form an ultrasound vibration element, the substrate is held by a backing with a low-modulus member therebetween, and a direct voltage and a alternating voltage are applied between the electrodes to vibrate the ultrasound vibration element, and wherein a mechanical impedance by the substrate and the low-modulus member has a substantially equal value as an acoustic impedance of the backing.

Ultrasound probe and ultrasound diagnostic device using same

Both controlling damage when assembling an ultrasonic probe using a chip formed with a capacitive ultrasonic transducer and securing operational reliability are achieved. In a semiconductor substrate on which the capacitive ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) is formed on a first primary surface, a protective film is formed on the surface of the ultrasonic transducer which is formed on the first primary surface of the semiconductor substrate which is then thinned by polishing a second primary surface opposite to the first primary surface of the semiconductor substrate, an ultrasonic transducer chip is cutout of the semiconductor substrate, a sound absorbing material is provided on the surface opposite to the surface formed with the ultrasonic transducer, and the protective film formed on the surface of the ultrasonic transducer is removed.

Production method for ultrasonic probe, ultrasonic probe, and ultrasonic diagnosis device

Provided are: an ultrasound probe with excellent characteristic stability; and ultrasound equipment that uses the ultrasound probe. The ultrasound probe has an ultrasonic transmitting and receiving element provided with a substrate, an insulating film formed on the substrate, a cavity formed between the substrate and the insulating film, and a pair of electrodes disposed parallel to the substrate so as to sandwich the cavity. The ultrasound probe is characterized in that the ultrasonic transmitting and receiving element has a beam part with a multilayer structure formed by laminating films made of materials different in stress, the beam part being disposed on the electrode distant from the substrate out of the pair of electrodes, and the beam part is formed by laminating a film that applies tensile stress and a film that applies compressive stress.

Ultrasound probe and ultrasound equipment using same

An ultrasound diagnostic apparatuscauses discharge meansto apply a discharge pulse (having a peak value equal to or greater than a collapse voltage) between electrodes of an ultrasound transducera plurality of time while inverting the polarity of the discharge pulse each time, to thereby accelerate discharge of the charge accumulated in the diaphragm of the ultrasound transducer, so that a transmission-reception sensitivity offset can be caused to quickly approach zero. The charge is discharged instantaneously. That is, it is possible to quickly calibrate a transmission-reception sensitivity drift stemming from time-course accumulation of charge flowing into the diaphragm between the electrodes upon application of a DC bias thereto.

Ultrasound diagnostic apparatus and method of calibrating the same

An ultrasonic transducer includes a first electrode, a second electrode, an insulating film disposed between the first and second electrodes, and a cavity disposed between the first and second electrodes. The insulating film includes a projection extending in the cavity, and a portion of the cavity is disposed between the projection and the first electrode. A portion of one of the first electrode and the second electrode has an opening corresponding to a position of the projection of the insulating film when viewed in plan view.

Ultrasonic transducer and manufacturing method thereof

The receive sensitivity of an ultrasound array transducer structured with a diaphragm electro-acoustic transducer () being a basic unit is affected by change in a charge amount with elapsed time due to leakage or the like, which causes drift of the primary beam sensitivity, degradation in the acoustic SN ratio due to a rise in the acoustic noise level, and degradation in the directivity of an ultrasound beam. To addressing this problem, a charge controller (charge monitor) is provided to control charge in an electro-acoustic transducer (). A charge monitoring section () monitors the change in the charge amount. When change in the charge amount is small, transmit sensitivity or receive sensitivity is calibrated by a controller () by, for example, multiplying a receive signal by a calibration coefficient corresponding to the change amount. Further, when the change in the charge amount is large, for example, charges can be re-emitted from a charge emitter ().

Ultrasonographic device

There is provided an ultrasound probe including a first substrate having a silicon substrate and an ultrasound transmit-receive element, an acoustic lens disposed over an upper surface of the first substrate, and a damping layer disposed under the first substrate, in which a second substrate is disposed between a lower surface of the first substrate and an upper surface of the damping layer, and the second substrate is made of a material having approximately the same linear expansion coefficient and acoustic impedance as the silicon substrate of the first substrate. With this structure, it is possible to provide the ultrasound probe which can prevent damage to the silicon substrate due to temperature change and has excellent transmission/reception performance and structure reliability while reducing noise by reflected waves in transmission and reception.

Ultrasound probe

The present invention provides an ultrasonic transducer device to send and receive ultrasonic waves, comprising a semiconductor substrate, a lower electrode disposed on the semiconductor substrate, a gap disposed on the lower electrode, a third insulation film disposed on the gap, an upper electrode disposed on the third insulation film, a fourth insulation film disposed on the upper electrode, a wiring layer disposed on the fourth insulation film, and a fifth insulation film disposed on the wiring layer. The upper electrode is electrically connected to the wiring layer with penetrating wires.

Ultrasonic transducer device and ultrasonic wave probe using same

According to the present invention, there is provided a membrane electrode composite module including a membrane electrode composite formed by sandwiching both surfaces of an electrolyte membrane between gas diffusion electrodes, an anode current collecting plate having fuel flow holes through which fuel flows, and a cathode current collecting plate having oxygen flow holes through which oxygen flows, wherein both surfaces of the membrane electrode composite are sandwiched between the anode current collecting plate and the cathode current collecting plate, the membrane electrode composite module further including films made of a synthetic resin (a first film and a second film) which are a base of the anode current collecting plate and a base of the cathode current collecting plate.

Membrane electrode composite module, fuel cell and electronic equipment, and method of manufacturing the membrane electrode composite module

A transducer for transmitting and receiving ultrasonic waves to a diaphragm-based ultrasonic transducer device using silicon as a base material. An electro-acoustic transducer device which can have a first electrode formed on top of, or inside, a substrate and having a thin film provided on top of the substrate. The device can also have a second electrode formed on top of, or inside, the thin film. A void layer can be provided between the first electrode and the second electrode. A charge-storage layer can be provided between the first electrode and the second electrode. A source electrode and a drain electrode can also be provided for measuring a quantity of electricity stored in the charge-storage layer.

Electro-acoustic transducer device

The present invention aims to stabilize sound-electricity conversion characteristics of a diaphragm-type sound-electricity conversion device as well as to decrease the noise level of an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus using the sound-electricity conversion device. The sound-electricity conversion device is configured by a capacitor cell including a lower electrode formed on a silicon substrate and an upper electrode over the lower electrode, the lower and upper electrodes sandwiching a cavity. An electrode short-circuit prevention film is formed on the upper electrode on the cavity side. The electrode short-circuit prevention film is formed of a material with an electrical time constant shorter than 1 second and longer than 10 microseconds, such as silicon nitride containing a stoichiometrically excessive amount of silicon. As a result, the electrode short-circuit prevention film has small electric conductivity, and thus it is made possible to prevent the film from being charged with electric charge and to avoid the drift of the electric charge. Consequently, the sound-electricity conversion characteristics of the sound-electricity conversion device stabilize, and further the sound noise level of the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus decreases.

Sound-electricity conversion device, array-type ultrasonic transducer, and ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus

Growing community of inventors

Ishioka, Japan

Tatsuya Nagata