The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 24, 1995
Filed:
Sep. 30, 1994
John R Klepper, Seattle, WA (US);
Levin F Nock, Issaquah, WA (US);
Siemens Medical Systems, Inc., Iselin, NJ (US);
Abstract
An ultrasound imaging system of the type including a 2D transducer array which has first and second types of transducer elements. Each element of the first type occupies an area of the array which is an integral fraction of the area occupied by each element of the second type. A connection arrangement comprising a plurality of multiplexer/summation circuits is provided for electrically connecting the array elements to the remainder of the ultrasound imaging system. Each multiplexer/summation circuit has a plurality of signal inputs individually connected to a respective plurality of the elements of the first type for selectively combining a given number of the elements of the first type together, the given number being an inverse of the integral fraction. In a preferred embodiment of the invention the 2D array is generally rectangular in shape and has elements arranged into rows along its lateral dimension and columns along its elevational dimension, with a first lateral portion of the array including at least one column of elements of the first type and a second lateral portion of the array including columns of elements of the second type. The multiplexer/summation circuit has signal inputs connected individually to each of the elements of a column of the elements of the first type, for selecting the given number of elements to be combined.