Hitachi, Ltd.

Fujitsu Corporation

Renesas Technology Corp.

Renesas Electronics Corporation

Fujifilm Healthcare Corporation

Sunsmilet's Corporation

Renesas Mobile Corporation

Yutaka Igarashi

Yusaku Katsube

Akio Yamamoto

Shinya Kajiyama

Kengo Imagawa

Takehiko Hayashi

Toshio Nagashima

Takuma Nishimoto

Hajime Hayashi

Hiroyuki Mizukami

Takao Goto

Takaki Shimura

Toru Yazaki

Yohei Nakamura

Masakazu Hayashi

KohIchiro Hotta

Isao Ikuta

Yoshihiro Hayashi

Yoshiyasu Nakashima

Akira Shiba

Hirohide Miwa

Keiichi Murakami

Manabu Matsuyama

Kazuhiro Amino

Takayuki Iwashita

Masaaki Takiuchi

Hiroshi Shimizu

Naoki Yamamoto

Tadashi Kuwabara

Tatsuo Nakagawa

Masaki Noda

Shinichiro Fukushima

Takahide Terada

Makoto Katagishi

Yukinobu Tada

Kenji Kawabe

Toru Numata

Yasuyuki Okuma

Yoshiaki Harasawa

Shinichi Amemiya

Norio Fujimaki

Mayumi Ueyama

Yoshikazu Sugiyama

Tsuneo Kawamata

Maki Furui

Katsuki Ikuta

Takeshi Uchitomi

Motoki Murakami

Rituko Kanazawa

Kohtaro Gotoh

Yasuku Katsube

Daisuke Yoshimi

Kosuke Tsuiji

Misuzu Mochizuki

Masayuki Matsumoto

Michitoshi Inoue

An ultrasonic probe including: a plurality of transducers; a plurality of low-noise amplifier circuits individually corresponding to the plurality of transducers, the plurality of low-noise amplifier circuits having a variable resistor feedback unit making a resistance value variable by an electrical signal inputted to a control terminal; and a control circuit; wherein the control circuit has a dummy circuit generating a bias voltage of a feedback unit of the low-noise amplifier circuit, and an adding circuit outputting an added signal of a bias voltage by the dummy circuit and a control signal increasing or decreasing with a lapse of time; and the plurality of low-noise amplifier circuits input an output of the adding circuit to the control terminal of the variable resistor feedback unit to perform variable control on a gain of the low-noise amplifier circuit.

Ultrasonic probe and ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus using thereon

To provide a probe including a TGC circuit therein. The probe includes a plurality of receive circuits. Each receive circuit includes: an ultrasound transducer; a transmit/receive switch; a variable attenuator; a first capacitor; and an amplifier. The ultrasound transducer converts the receive signal into a ground level electric signal and outputs the ground level electric signal as a first output signal. The transmit/receive switch is connected to a first signal line, and switches depending on whether to output the first output signal output from the ultrasound transducer to the first signal line. The variable attenuator includes a control terminal and two terminals, and changes a resistance value between the two terminals other than the control terminal based on a control signal input to the control terminal. The amplifier has an input terminal connected to the first capacitor and includes at least an amplifier circuit configured to amplify an electric signal of the first signal line and output the amplified electric signal to a second signal line. In the variable attenuator, one of the two terminals other than the control terminal is connected to the first signal line, and the other terminal is connected to the ground via a second capacitor different from the first capacitor.

Probe and ultrasound diagnostic device using the same

A conventional safe proper becomes useless when unable to be locked or unlocked, thereby causing a waste of resources. Locks capable of being locked/unlocked are provided to unfasten a common fastening member, so as to open a door or lid from the body, allow each lock to be freely mounted on and dismounted from a lock mounting portion, and dispose a false lock on each lock. An operating means of locking/unlocking any one of the locks is provided to enable persistent use of a common latch disposed at an identity opening of a safe proper.

Lock system with common fastening member

An object of the invention is to provide an ultrasonic probe, an ultrasonic diagnostic device, and a manufacturing method of the ultrasonic probe, which are capable of reducing a product defect rate. An ultrasonic probe according to one embodiment includes a plurality of channels. Each of the plurality of channels includes a vibrator that outputs an ultrasonic wave, and a transmission circuit unit that changes an output in response to an input transmission signal and causes the vibrator to output the ultrasonic wave by driving the vibrator with the output. Here, the transmission circuit unit includes a stop signal holding circuit that holds a stop signal when the stop signal is input in advance, and selects whether to change the output in response to the transmission signal based on whether the stop signal is held.

Ultrasonic probe, ultrasonic diagnostic device, and manufacturing method of ultrasonic probe

Provided is a probe which transmits an ultrasonic wave to a diagnostic site and receives a reception signal which is a reflected wave. The probe includes: a plurality of transducers; a plurality of low-noise amplifying circuits respectively corresponding to the plurality of transducers; and a single differential converter which converts a control signal rising with the elapse of time to a first bias signal rising with the elapse of time and a second bias signal falling with the elapse of time to control the plurality of low-noise amplifying circuits, and the low-noise amplifying circuit includes: an attenuator which attenuates an electric signal from the transducer; a first amplifying circuit which sets the first bias signal as a bias and amplifies an output signal of the attenuator to be gradually increased with the elapse of time; a second amplifying circuit which sets the second bias signal as a bias and amplifies the output signal of the attenuator to be gradually reduced with the elapse of time; and a subtractor which subtracts an output of the first amplifying circuit and an output of the second amplifying circuit.

Ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus and probe used for the same

Provided is a probe which transmits an ultrasonic wave to a diagnostic site and receives a reception signal which is a reflected wave. The probe includes: a plurality of transducers; a plurality of low-noise amplifying circuits respectively corresponding to the plurality of transducers; and a single differential converter which converts a control signal rising with the elapse of time to a first bias signal rising with the elapse of time and a second bias signal falling with the elapse of time to control the plurality of low-noise amplifying circuits, and the low-noise amplifying circuit includes an attenuator which attenuates: an electric signal from the transducer; a first amplifying circuit which sets the first bias signal as a bias and amplifies an output signal of the attenuator to be gradually increased with the elapse of time; a second amplifying circuit which sets the second bias signal as a bias and amplifies the output signal of the attenuator to be gradually reduced with the elapse of time; and a subtractor which subtracts an output of the first amplifying circuit and an output of the second amplifying circuit.

An ultrasound diagnosis device includes: an ultrasound probe which transmits an ultrasound wave toward a examinee and receives a reflected wave from the examinee; and a main device which controls the transmitting and receiving of the ultrasound waves from the ultrasound probe and is operated to receive a receiving signal obtained by receiving the reflected wave from the examinee by the ultrasound probe, to generate an ultrasound image of the examinee, and to display the ultrasound image on a display screen, wherein the ultrasound probe includes a plurality of subarrays having a plurality of element circuits transmitting and receiving ultrasound signals and a plurality of reference voltage sources, and the plurality of subarrays and the plurality of reference voltage sources have a one-to-one correspondence.

Ultrasound probe and ultrasound diagnosis device using the same

Provided are an ultrasound probe, an element circuit thereof, and an ultrasound diagnostic device, whereby high image quality is possible and reduced size and lower cost are made possible. Provided is an ultrasound probe, comprising: a 2-D array transducer wherein a plurality of transducers are arrayed two-dimensionally; and a 2-D array IC in which are formed, upon an IC substrate, drive circuits which are disposed upon each of the transducers of the 2-D array transducer to drive each of the transducers at different timings with a prescribed delay quantity, and common current sources which supply drive current to the transducers of the 2-D array transducer. The number n of the common current sources which are formed upon the IC substrate is fewer than the number N of the drive circuits which are formed upon the IC substrate.

Ultrasound probe, element circuit thereof, and ultrasound diagnostic device using same

A test for screening defects of a transmission/reception circuit in an IC is enabled at low cost, without withstand voltage violation, and without carrying out electrical contacts with many terminals connected to oscillators. In a transmission/reception separation switch circuit using transistors as switch elements, a potential of a gate is lowered in a test more than the potential in a case of reception to avoid gate-source withstand-voltage violation when a large-amplitude signal is input, and an internal-signal loopback test is carried out without destroying a reception circuit.

Ultrasonic-wave probe, ultrasonic-wave diagnosis apparatus, and test method of ultrasonic-wave probe

A transmit receive switch circuit has a first MOSFET (MN) and a second MOSFET (MN), goes into a switch-off state at the time of transmission, and goes into a switch-on state at the time of reception. The first MOSFET (MN) and the second MOSFET (MN) are connected between an input terminal (SWIN) and an output terminal (SWOUT). The switch circuit includes a shunt circuit (SHNT) that is connected between a common gate (COMG) and a common source (COMS), the common gate being connected to the gates of the first and second MOSFETs, and the common source being connected to the sources of the first and second MOSFETs. When a signal having a negative voltage relative to a reference voltage is applied to the input terminal, a switch that temporarily turns on causes the shunt circuit to short-circuit the common gate and the common source.

Switch circuit, ultrasound probe using the same, and ultrasonic diagnosis apparatus

An objective of the present invention is to provide an ultrasound system which can correct a positive-negative asymmetry in pulse inversion (PI) and obtain a high-image quality ultrasound image. To carryout an asymmetry correction of a transmission assembly circuit comprising an oscillation adjustment amplifier () and an ultrasound oscillator array (), correction data obtained in a calibration mode is stored in a correction memory (), and positive-negative asymmetry of an overall receiving assembly circuit comprising a computation unit () is corrected in a diagnostic mode of the device using the correction data.

Ultrasound system and method, and ultrasound probe

Provided is an ultrasonic probe having an adjustable slew rate, the ultrasonic probe having minimal dimensions and circuit sizes. The ultrasonic probe includes: a transducer; a transmitting circuit; a correcting unit; and a distributing unit. The transmitting circuit includes a transducer driving unit and a current source. The transducer driving unit includes a current mirror of a low voltage transistor and a high voltage transistor. The high voltage transistor is connected to the transducer and the current source supplies an operating current to the low voltage transistor of the transducer driving unit. The correcting unit includes a transmission circuit driving unit replica, a bias unit, and an observing unit. The distributing unit transfers a signal to a current source of the transmitting circuit so that the same current value as the current value extracted by the observing unit flows.

Ultrasonic probe and ultrasonic diagnosis device provided with same

Amplification of a signal by a small circuit size and reduction of a power are achieved. A current controlling current source unitchanges an outputting current based on a transition time setting signal tp. A current controlling current source unitchanges a drawing current based on a transition time setting signal tn. An amplitude control unitchanges a power source voltage supplied to the current controlling current source unitand changes amplitude of a voltage generated by a current outputted from the current controlling current source unit, based on amplitude setting signal ap. An amplitude control unitchanges a power source voltage supplied to the current controlling current source unitand changes amplitude of a voltage generated by the current drawn by the current controlling current source unit, based on amplitude setting signal an. The buffer unitdrives a load in accordance with the current outputted from the current controlling current source unitand the current drawn from the current controlling current source unit

Amplifier circuit and ultrasonic probe

A conventional safe proper becomes useless when unable to be locked or unlocked, thereby causing a waste of resources. Locks capable of being locked/unlocked are provided to unfasten a common fastening member, so as to open a door or lid from the body, allow each lock to be freely mounted on and dismounted from a lock mounting portion, and dispose a false lock on each lock. Operation of locking/unlocking any one of the locks is provided to enable persistent use of a common latch disposed at an identity opening of a safe proper.

Lock, lock member, lock mechanism having the lock member, and safe having the lock, lock member, and lock mechanism

A semiconductor integrated circuit includes a first wireless access system reception unit including a first analog reception unit and a first digital reception unit, a voltage-controlled oscillator, a phase locked loop, and a digital interface. The first analog reception unit comprises a first reception mixer for down-converting an RF reception signal into a first analog reception signal and a first analog-digital converter for converting the first analog reception signal into a first digital reception signal. The first wireless access system reception unit, the voltage-controlled oscillator, and the phase locked loop enable switching from a reception operation for a first RF reception signal of a first system to a reception operation for a second RF reception signal of a second system.

Semiconductor integrated circuit and operating method thereof

Growing community of inventors

Yokohama, Japan

Yutaka Igarashi