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, 2006
Filed:
Feb. 18, 2003
Morio Nishigaki, Fujisawa, JP;
Yoshihiko Ito, Machida, JP;
Takao Suzuki, Yokohama, JP;
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Osaka, JP;
Abstract
An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus is disclosed which can reduce the device amount of a receiving circuit, while obtaining the shape of an excellent received beam. In this ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, a plurality of transducer elements are arrayed and used as an ultrasonic probe, and the transducer elements are driven by a plurality of transmission driving circuit. The signal received by the transducer element is distributed to any of a plurality of input terminals of a cross point switch beam former. The received signals of the three transducer elements near the center of the aperture of the ultrasonic probe are added and inputted to one terminal of a beam former. The second, fourth and sixth transducer elements at the end of the aperture are not connected to the beam former. The signals received by the transducer elements are delay-added by the beam former. The delay precision can be improved, and the beam shape can be made sharper, thereby improving the image quality of the ultrasonic image.