IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING, VOL. 55, NO.

2, FEBRUARY 2008

519

Experimental System Prototype of a Portable,

Low-Cost, C-Scan Ultrasound Imaging Device
Michael I. Fuller*, Member, IEEE, Karthik Ranganathan, Member, IEEE, Shiwei Zhou, Member, IEEE,
Travis N. Blalock, Member, IEEE, John A. Hossack, Senior Member, IEEE, and William F. Walker, Member, IEEE

AbstractA system prototype of a future compact, low-cost

medical ultrasound device is described and presented with experimental results. The prototype system consists of a 32 32 element,
fully sampled 2-D transducer array and a printed circuit board
(PCB) containing 16 custom front-end receive channel integrated circuits (ICs) with analog multiplexing and programmable
logic. A PC that included a commercially available data acquisition card is used for data collection and analysis. Beamforming is
performed offline using the direct sampled in-phase/quadrature
(DSIQ) algorithm. Pulse-echo images obtained with the prototype
are presented. Results from this prototype support the feasibility
of a low-cost, pocket-sized, C-scan imaging device.
Index TermsApplication-specific integrated circuits, biomedical acoustic imaging, C-scan, portable ultrasound.

I. INTRODUCTION

S DIGITAL beamforming techniques are refined and

advances in semiconductor technology continue to allow
for smaller, more power-efficient, and less expensive integrated
circuits (ICs), the ultrasound community has begun focusing
on developing portable medical ultrasound devices [1][11].
These compact systems allow for the expansion of ultrasound
into application areas formerly excluded by system size and
cost considerations. The newer systems are lightweight (often
hand-held) units that better facilitate patient point-of-care
and offer an order of magnitude cost reduction. Examples of
these newer, smaller commercial systems include: the iLook
series (Sonosite, Inc., Bothell, WA); OptiGo (Philips Medical
Systems, Andover, MA); Acuson Cypress (Siemens Medical
Solutions USA, Malvern, PA); HS-1500 (Honda Electronics,
Co., Ltd., Toyohashi, Aichi, Japan); Terason t3000 (Teratech

Manuscript received February 17, 2007; revised May 16, 2007. This work
was supported by the Carilion Biomedical Institute and NIH NIBIB Grant RO1
EB0023489. Asterisk indicates corresponding author.
*M. I. Fuller was with the Department of Biomedical Engineering, University
of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22908 USA. He is now with PocketSonics, Inc.,
Charlottesville, VA 22901 USA (e-mail: mfuller@pocketsonics.com).
K. Ranganathan was with the Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22908 USA. He is now with PocketSonics, Inc., Charlottesville, VA 22901 USA.
S. Zhou was with the Department of Biomedical Engineering, University
of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA USA. He is now with Philips Research North
America, Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510 USA.
T. N. Blalock is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904 USA.
J. A. Hossack is with the Department of Biomedical Engineering, University
of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22908 USA.
W. F. Walker is with the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904 USA.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TBME.2007.903517

Corporation, Burlington, MA); the LOGIQ Book (GE Medical

Systems, Waukesha, WI); and the z.one (ZONARE Medical
Systems, Inc., Mountain View, CA).
While these devices have already found widespread use, a
vast niche for medical ultrasound remains unfilled among unconventional or uninitiated users of ultrasound. Such clinicians,
medical technicians, battlefield medics, and veterinarians would
greatly benefit from using ultrasound to provide adjunct information during routine medical examinations or when rapid diagnosis is crucial to patient survival. Adapting the development
of a medical ultrasound device to these clinical needs requires
judicious tradeoffs in system complexity to provide an avenue
to creating a pocket-sized unit with a simple, intuitive interface
and order of magnitude cost reduction beyond that offered by
current hand-held systems. Furthermore, by employing a 2-D
transducer array, more intuitive scan formats such as C-mode
become available to users who may have had limited exposure to
B-mode imaging. The Sonic Window is a low-cost, pocket-sized
medical ultrasound system currently under development at the
University of Virginia with these concepts and target applications in mind.
Potential applications for the Sonic Window include guiding
needle and catheter insertion [12][16]; guiding biopsies [17],
[18]; locating foreign bodies [19], [20]; identifying internal
bleeding and fluid collection [13], [21]; and supporting routine
physical examination [3], [21][24]. The low cost and compact size of the device could open applications in veterinary
medicine and animal research. One such application would
be tumor localization and growth monitoring, a task that is
currently performed via palpation or visual inspection. In this
and other applications, the Sonic Window is envisioned as a
widely available, easy to use device suitable for users with little
or no prior ultrasound experience. As such, it will not compete
with state of the art systems with respect to image quality or
flexibility, but must surpass them with respect to ease of use,
cost, and portability.
The high level of integration required by the Sonic Window
requires a significant degree of collaboration and cross-innovation between transducer, electronics, and beamforming development. There exists a need, therefore, to experimentally verify the
expected performance and tradeoffs of these three components
not only in isolation, but also as a system, and in a manner versatile enough to accommodate modifications in their design. It is
probable that several versions of the transducer will be designed
and fabricated as the dicing procedure, backing design, and material selection are refined. Also, any modifications to the receive electronics circuitry will require new ICs to be fabricated.

0018-9294/$25.00 2008 IEEE

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Fig. 2. System block diagram of the proposed Sonic Window device. The design is partitioned into a single transmit circuit, a fully sampled 2-D transducer
array, a custom IC containing receive circuitry, a commercially available DSP,
and a liquid crystal display.

Fig. 1. Long-term concept of the Sonic Window device. A model of the Sonic
Window is used to demonstrate its use in guiding needle insertion, one of many
possible applications.

Equally important, the development of an experimental system

containing a custom, fully sampled 2-D array and custom receive circuitry provides a unique opportunity to study the performance of a variety of beamforming and signal processing algorithms while having knowledge and control over design parameters that are inaccessible on commercial clinical scanners.
This paper discusses the design and assembly of an experimental ultrasound system consisting of a 32 32-element,
fully sampled 2-D transducer array, a PCB containing sixteen
64-channel front-end receive ICs with associated control logic
and bias circuits, a PCI card digitizer, and a PC that executes
beamforming and signal processing algorithms in software.
The 2-D transducer array was fabricated on a separate PCB
and mates with the receive electronics PCB by way of surface
mount connectors. This experimental system can capture and
store 1024 channels of RF data for subsequent offline processing, enabling us to explore the effects of our transducer
fabrication, circuit topologies, and beamforming strategies
on image quality. A description of the system and obtained
experimental results are provided next.

A block diagram of the future Sonic Window system is illustrated in Fig. 2. The design is partitioned into a single transmit
circuit, a fully-sampled 2-D transducer array, a custom IC containing an array of receive channels, a commercially available
DSP, and a liquid crystal display. The common node of the
2-D array is connected to the transmit circuit during transmit
mode and to analog ground during receive mode. Each receive
channel will consist of an on-chip transmit protection shunting
device, a variable gain preamplifier, a bandpass filter, a sampleand-hold (S/H) stage, an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), and
static memory. Placing the transmit protection devices on-chip
eliminates the need for bulky, expensive, and power-consuming
off-chip switching elements. The S/H stage consists of two S/H
units, whose output samples are one quarter period apart at the
center frequency of the received pulse. This operation estimates
the in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) components of the RF signal,
as defined by the DSIQ beamforming algorithm [27]. Furthermore, by forming C-mode images rather than B-mode, each S/H
unit need only capture a minimum of one sample per image.
The combination of these two properties dramatically simplifies the design of the ADC by permitting digitization rates as
low as 10 kHz and produces much less stringent memory and
data bandwidth requirements. Since a standard CMOS process
is used, this results in significant reductions in cost, IC area, and
power consumption.
III. DESCRIPTION OF EXPERIMENTAL SYSTEM PROTOTYPE

II. SYSTEM-LEVEL DESCRIPTION

A description of the proposed ultracompact, low-cost medical ultrasound device, the Sonic Window, was presented earlier
[25], [26]. The ultimate concept (Fig. 1) is a fully integrated,
pocket-sized unit consisting of a 2-D array, receive and protection circuitry implemented on a custom integrated circuit, beamforming implemented on a digital signal processor (DSP), and a
high-resolution LCD screen for image display. Crucial savings
in circuit area and complexity are gained through the use of a
novel beamforming approach, direct sampled in-phase/quadrature (DSIQ) beamforming [27], as well as new integrated circuit
topologies [25], [35]. These innovations, combined with the development of an inexpensive method for fabricating a fully sampled 2-D transducer array on a PCB [28], enable an unprecedented level of integration and dramatic reductions in system
cost.

An experimental ultrasound system was designed and constructed (Fig. 3) consisting of a 2-D array, custom receive
and protection circuitry, and a PC that included a Gage Compuscope 12100 PCI card (Gage Applied Technologies, Inc.,
Lachine, QC, Canada). The transducer array was fabricated on
a PCB substrate [28]. Each transducer element was electrically
connected to a dedicated pad on a surface mount connector on
the back of the PCB, while all the elements shared a common
in
in
connection on the top. A separate ten-layer,
PCB was fabricated (Fig. 4) that contains 16 custom receive
circuitry ICs, four ADG707 8:1 differential analog multiplexing
ICs (Analog Devices, Norwood, MA), two output buffer channels, and an onboard XCR3064XL complex programmable
logic device (CPLD) (Xilinx, Inc., San Jose, CA). The PCB
containing the 2-D transducer array was designed to mate
with the receive circuitry PCB by way of the surface-mount

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The PCB (MetroCircuits, Rochester, NY) consists of nine

routing layers to fan out each element pad to a contact on one
of 16 surface-mount (SM) connectors on the rear of the board
[Fig. 5(b)], which electrically mate the transducer array to
corresponding SM connectors on the receive circuitry PCB. A
tenth layer serves as a ground plane. Design parameters such
as trace width and spacing (3 mil/76 m), minimum drill size
(6 mil/152 m), and pad size (12 mil/305 m) represent the
threshold of current industry capabilities for a ten-layer PCB.
B. Custom-Integrated Circuit Design

Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of the experimental prototype system. The transducer array was fabricated on a PCB substrate. A separate PCB contains 16
custom receive circuitry ICs each consisting of 64 front-end receive channels.
Each transducer element is electrically connected to a unique receive channel on
the electronics PCB. The outputs of the 1024 receive channels are multiplexed
on-chip (64:2) and off-chip (32:2) down to two bandpass filter output channels
coupled to a PC fitted with a two-channel data acquisition card.

connectors (FX11-series, Hirose Electric (USA), Inc., Simi

Valley, CA). The data acquisition card was capable of capturing
two channels of 12-bit data simultaneously at a sampling rate
of 50 MHz. Thus, 512 separate transmit events were necessary
to capture all 1024 channels of RF data, and memory depth
in each channel was limited to 1600 12-bit samples. Volume
RF data acquired with the prototype system was sampled and
stored on a PC for subsequent processing and data analysis in
Matlab (The MathWorks, Inc., Natick, MA).
A. Fully Sampled, 2-D Transducer Array
Transducer development for the Sonic Window [28] involves the dual challenge of constructing a fully sampled (high
channel count) 2-D array that is also inexpensive. The largest
difficulty is the interconnect, where an electrical connection
must be made between each transducer element and its dedicated receive channel. To date, we have used a printed circuit
board substrate, which can be fabricated much less expensively than other approaches such as multilayer flex circuits,
wire-bonding, and solder connections. The transducer was
fabricated by attaching a 0.53-mm-thick wafer of high permittivity, high-electromechanical-coupling-coefficient ceramic
(HD3203, CTS Wireless, Albuquerque, NM) to an array of pads
on the PCB using Chobond silver epoxy (Chomerics, Woburn,
MA). The wafer was then diced using a NBC-ZH2040 Disco
dicing blade (Disco Corp., Tokyo, Japan) to form isolated elements. The kerfs were 0.04 mm wide and 0.125 mm deep into
the PCB substrate. A low-viscosity, unfilled epoxy (RE2039,
Loctite, Rocky Hill, CT) was used to fill the kerfs. Finally,
the entire transducer array was covered with a gold-plated
polyester electrode that serves as a common node to all the
elements [Fig. 5(a)].

A number of researchers have recently implemented frontend receive electronics on custom ICs for applications such as
real-time 3-D imaging [29], intravascular ultrasound [30], [31],
intra-oral ultrasound [32], high-frequency annular arrays [33],
and portable ultrasound [6], [8], [34]. We designed a custom IC
containing 64 analog front-end receive channels implemented in
a standard TSMC 0.35- m CMOS process available through the
MOSIS Integrated Circuit Fabrication Service (Marina del Rey,
CA). Sixteen of these 64-channel ICs are used to form all 1024
receive channels in our prototype system. Each channel consists
of an on-chip transmit protection shunting device, a variable
gain preamplifier, and a transconductance buffer. The receive
channel is fully differential to reduce distortion and suppresses
the effects of power supply and substrate noise.
The transmit protection scheme, described in [35], excludes
the expensive and area-consuming off-chip components used
in other systems to prevent the high-voltage transmit pulse
from damaging the receive electronics. Instead, a suitably
sized NMOS transistor implemented on-chip is connected
between the preamplifier input and a low-impedance power
supply serving as analog ground. During the transmit event,
this NMOS transistor is turned on, shunting the large current
transient from the high-voltage transmit pulse to analog ground.
Only a fraction (on the order of 100 mV) of the transmit voltage
(as high as 100 V) appears at the input to the preamplifier. The
shunt device is turned off during receive to permit amplification
of the received echo signal.
The low-noise preamplifier design (Fig. 6) consists of two
identical differential stages with variable gain. The gain can be
adjusted between 30 and 85 dB by adjusting the bias voltage
of triode-region device M3, which serves as a source degeneration resistance (Fig. 7). A novel low-frequency suppression
scheme is incorporated into the preamplifier design to serve the
dual purpose of reducing 1/f noise and rejecting dc offset. The
active load of the amplifier is designed to have high mid-band
gain, but small low-frequency gain, as shown in Fig. 7. The gain
profile can be tuned by adjusting the bias voltage LowFreqAdj.
The preamplifier equivalent input noise of 5 nV/ Hz (within
the band of interest) was found in simulation by performing a
noise analysis in the Cadence Virtuoso Spectre Circuit Simulator (Cadence Design Systems, Inc., San Jose, CA).
Each preamplifier is followed by a differential transconductance buffer performing a voltage-to-current conversion, providing the means to implement a current-mode analog multiplexing scheme in which multiple channels can share the same
output node with minimal impact on signal bandwidth. The 64
channels are grouped into two 32-channel banks each having a

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Fig. 4. Photograph of the 11 in x 11.5 in receive electronics PCB (top view). The PCB contains sixteen 64-channel custom receive circuitry ICs, four differential
analog multiplexing ICs, two output buffer channels, and an onboard CPLD. The 2-D transducer array was designed to mate with the rear side of the receive
circuitry PCB by way of surface-mount connectors.

differential output (Fig. 8). One channel per bank is permitted

to drive its signal onto the common output nodes at any given
time. The output buffers of the inactive channels are disabled
by turning off their respective output MOSFET devices, effectively forcing them into a high-impedance state. A 5-bit decoder
selects the active channel in each bank.
The active die area of the front-end receive circuit IC is
1.9 mm 0.9 mm, and includes the 64 analog receive channels and associated multiplexing logic (Fig. 9). The die were
packaged (Promex Industries, Santa Clara, CA) into a Kyocera
PGA121M (Kyocera America, Inc., San Diego, CA) 121-pin
ceramic package.
IV. METHODS
The experimental prototype system was assembled and tested
for basic functionality prior to attempting a transmit event or
forming pulse-echo images. Test points on the back of the transducer array were probed with the transducer PCB connected to
the receive electronics PCB. A 100-mV sinusoidal test signal
was applied to each element and RF data were acquired from

all channels. This experiment provided verification of the mapping of transducer elements to channels and identified open or
shorted connections between the transducer elements and the
inputs to the receive circuitry ICs.
Pulse-echo volume datasets were acquired using the prototype system. The transducer was driven at its center frequency
of 3.3 MHz with an eight-cycle Gaussian-enveloped sinusoid
having a full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) bandwidth of
approximately 30% and a peak-to-peak amplitude of 30 V. As
described above, the data acquisition hardware was capable of
acquiring and storing 1024 channels of data sampled at 50 MHz
with a memory depth of 1600 12-bit samples. C-mode images of
each target were formed on the PC in Matlab using three beamforming techniques: beamforming using only time delays, conventional baseband demodulated I/Q beamforming using only
phase delays, and DSIQ beamforming that also uses only phase
delays. Beamforming was implemented to be consistent with
the methods followed in [27], with the exception of the assumed
transducer fractional bandwidth (30% versus 55%), center frequency (3.3 MHz versus 5.5 MHz), the sampling rate (50 MHz
versus 39.27 MHz), and that fact that our experimental system

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Fig. 6. Schematic of a single stage of the differential preamplifier. The gain

can be adjusted from 30 to 85 dB by adjusting the bias voltage RecvGain. The
active load of the amplifier is designed to have high mid-band gain, but small
low-frequency gain. The gain profile can be tuned by adjusting the bias voltage
LowFreqAdj.

Fig. 5. Fully sampled 2-D transducer array PCB. The transducer array is located on the top of the PCB (a) where the gold foil common node is visible.
The surface-mount connectors on the bottom of the PCB (b) interface with the
receive electronics PCB and connect each transducer element to its respective
receive channel.

forms C-mode images (in keeping with the Sonic Window device concept) as opposed to the B-mode images formed in [27].
-dB fracThe acquired data was filtered in Matlab to 30%
tional bandwidth at 3.3 MHz with a 51-order FIR filter. Hann
window apodization was used [36]. Scaling was applied where
applicable to compensate for energy differences in pixels beamformed with receive apertures that intersected edges of the 2-D
array.
Time-delay beamforming was implemented using unquantized time delays (IEEE double precision floating point representation). A cubic spline-based continuous representation of
the sampled data was used to evaluate the received signals in
each channel at the requisite time points [27], [37]. RF data
produced by summing across channels were envelope detected
using the Hilbert transform.

Fig. 7. Experimental measurements of gain (at 5 MHz) as a function of RecvGain control voltage and frequency response of preamplifier at maximum gain
setting (RecvGain = 2 V).

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Fig. 8. Block diagram of the 64-channel receive circuitry front-end IC. Each
channel is fully differential and consists of an NFET protection device, a preamplifier, and a transconductance output buffer. The channels are arranged in two
32-channel banks. All channels within a bank share a differential output node.
A 5-bit decoder selects one channel per bank at a time by enabling the channels
output buffer.

As described in [27], DSIQ samples will be formed in our

final system by splitting the received signal between two parallel
sample-and-hold (S/H) channels. As described in Section II, the
Sonic Window device will ultimately include S/H stages and
ADCs on the same IC as the front-end receive circuitry components. In each receive channel, one S/H will acquire the I
component and then the other S/H will acquire the Q component by sampling one quarter of a period later at the center
frequency of the signal. In the experimental system prototype,
only the front-end circuitry was implemented on-chip, and the
sampling was performed by the Gage Compuscope 12100 PCI
card at a rate of 50 MHz at uniform sampling intervals. The
I component sample was taken directly from this acquired RF
datathe Q component sample was synthesized by interpolating the acquired RF data at a time lag of a quarter period
at the assumed center frequency using cubic spline interpolation [27], [37]. The apodization, phase rotation and summation
across channels were implemented as in the conventional baseband demodulation case described above.
The three beamforming methods described above were used
to form C-mode images from pulse-echo data acquired off two
targets for the purpose of comparing the performance of the
DSIQ method to the time-delay and conventional I/Q methods,
as well as evaluate the overall performance of the experimental
system. The first target was a 200- m nylon wire in a water
tank placed 1.5 cm below and parallel to the face of the transducer. The second target was a custom-made edge phantom,
m/s) having
which consisted of 10% acrylamide gel (
one speckle-generating region and one nonspeckle-generating
region. The speckle-generating region was constructed by incorporating Sephadex (Amersham, Piscataway, NJ) into the acrylamide. The procedure followed in constructing this phantom
was based on that described in [38], although higher acrylamide
concentrations were used. The geometry of this edge phantom
is such that an ideal C-mode image acquisition should produce
an image with speckle in one half and an absence of speckle
(anechoic region) in the other half.
V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

Fig. 9. Microphotograph of the 64-channel receive circuitry IC [35].

Conventional baseband demodulated data were obtained

to form
by multiplying the received data by
to form the
the in-phase (I) component and by
quadrature (Q) component, where was the transducer center
frequency of 3.3 MHz, was the sample number, and was
the sampling interval. This data were then low-pass filtered
with a fifth-order Butterworth filter and zero-phase distortion
was accomplished by filtering once in the forward direction
and then filtering a second time after reversing the output. This
-dB cutoff at 3.3 MHz. The I and Q components
produced a
were combined into an analytic representation of the received
echo signal that was then apodized and focused via phase
rotation through complex multiplication operations, the results
of which were summed across channels to yield the intensity at
a given point on the image plane.

Fig. 10 is a binary mapping of dead channels discovered

from the probing procedure. It was found that 69 out of 1024
electrical channels (6.74%) contained an open circuit between
the transducer element and its corresponding receive channel
input. The cause of the majority of these open connections
was determined to be due to errors in the layout design of
the 2-D transducer array PCB. Poor contact was also noted
between the surface-mount connectors on the transducer PCB
and the receive electronics PCB. Since contact between these
surface-mount connectors relies on a friction fit, minor bending
and warping of the transducer PCB can result in localized
misalignment of connector contacts. This overall net channel
yield should be distinguished from the transducer element
yield, which was measured to be 99%.
The top panel in Fig. 11 illustrates the simulated 2-D point
spread function (PSF) in the C-mode plane for the ideal case in
which 100% of the receive channels are connected to their respective transducer elements. The bottom panel in Fig. 11 illustrates the simulated 2-D PSF in the C-mode plane for a 6.74%

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525

Fig. 10. Diagram mapping the location of dead channels (defined as an open
circuit between the receive channel and transducer element, indicated in black)
with respect to their corresponding physical location on the 2-D transducer
array.

channel loss having the same distribution (channel-to-element

mapping) observed in the experimental prototype system (see
Fig. 10). These two PSFs were computed in Matlab using a
narrowband RayleighSommerfeld formulation [39] for a plane
parallel to the transducer at a depth of 2 cm. Hann window
apodization [37] was used. The images in Fig. 11 were normalized, logarithmically compressed, and mapped so as to present
to 0 dB.
image intensity over the range
The C-mode images of the wire target acquired with the
prototype system (Fig. 12) were formed using conventional
unquantized time-delay beamforming (TD), conventional
baseband demodulated I/Q beamforming (IQ), and DSIQ
beamforming (DSIQ) methods for f#s of 0.5, 1, and 2. Hann
window apodization was used. The C-mode images were
normalized, logarithmically compressed, and mapped so as
to 0 dB. The
to present image intensity over the range
FWHM of the wire in the acquired images at f/1 is 1.2 mm.
One-dimensional integrated cross-sections of the wire target
images in azimuth were formed by performing a 2-D spline
interpolation (8x) on the original absolute image, summing in
elevation, and then plotting the normalized, logarithmically
compressed result.
C-mode images of the edge phantom target acquired with the
prototype system (Fig. 13) were formed using pure time-delay
beamforming (TD), conventional baseband demodulated I/Q
beamforming (IQ), and DSIQ beamforming (DSIQ) methods
for f#s of 0.5, 1, and 2. Hann window apodization was used.
The contrast between the region with speckle and region with
no speckle was 10 dB. The C-mode images were normalized,
logarithmically compressed and mapped so as to present image
to 0 dB. One-dimensional inteintensity over the range
grated cross-sections of the edge phantom images in elevation
were formed by performing a 2-D spline interpolation (8x) on

Fig. 11. Simulated 2-D PSF (C-mode plane at a depth of 2 cm) for the ideal
case in which 100% of the receive channels are connected to their respective
transducer elements, and for a 6.74% channel loss following the distribution
(channel-to-element mapping) observed in the experimental prototype system.
Both images were normalized, logarithmically compressed and mapped so as to
present image intensity over the range 40 to 0 dB.

the original absolute image, summing in azimuth, and then

plotting the normalized, logarithmically compressed result.
VI. DISCUSSION
Overall, the experimental results shown are very promising
in that they demonstrate successful pulse-echo image formation
with a low-cost, compact, experimental ultrasound system in its
proof-of-concept phase of development. There do exist, however, multiple avenues for improving image quality.
The largest contributor to poor image quality was the presence of large grating lobes (observable in Fig. 11 approximately
1.5 cm from the focus) caused by the transducer element pitch.
The pitch was 635 m, while the wavelength at 3.3 MHz and
1540 m/s speed of sound is 467 m. Element pitch was limited
by the PCB manufacturing capabilities, specifically the trace
width/spacing and minimum pad size for vias. The minimum
pad size was necessarily increased to account for the worsening
drill tolerance as the aspect ratio (ratio of PCB thickness to

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Fig. 12. C-mode images acquired with the prototype system of a 200-m nylon wire in a water tank placed 1.5 cm below and parallel to the face of the transducer.
The images were formed using pure time-delay beamforming (TD), conventional baseband demodulated I/Q beamforming (IQ), and DSIQ beamforming (DSIQ)
methods for f#s of 0.5, 1, and 2. Hann window apodization was used. The images were normalized, logarithmically compressed, and mapped so as to present image
intensity over the range 30 to 0 dB. One-dimensional integrated cross-sections of the wire target images in azimuth were formed by performing a 2-D spline
interpolation (8x) on the original absolute image, summing in elevation, and then plotting the normalized, logarithmically compressed result.

drill hole size) increased. The aspect ratio increased with the
number of routing layers, which in turn depended on the trace
width/spacing.
Another significant contributor to image quality limitations is
the manner in which signals were routed from individual transducer elements to their respective electronic receive channels.
As described in Section V, routing errors in the transducer PCB
along with intermittent poor contact between the surface mount
connectors resulted in a channel loss of 6.74%. As illustrated in
Fig. 11, these lost channels have the undesirable effect of significantly degrading the PSF by raising side lobe levels to as high as
dB and distorting the mainlobe. Note also that the channel
loss results in a shift variant systempixel-to-pixel gain varies
as the receive aperture is translated across this nonuniform pattern of dead transducer elements. These effects significantly
contribute to the presence of clutter and other artifacts, causing
anomalous spots and kinks or gaps in the wire target image and
poor contrast in the edge phantom image. Furthermore, the inter-

connect scheme also suffers from parasitic inductances, capacitances, and resistances associated with long PCB traces, the surface-mount connectors, and the custom IC pin grid array (PGA)
chip packages that all contribute to signal-to-noise (SNR) degradation, crosstalk, and impedance variation among channels.
Despite successful image formation using this preamplifier
(see Fig. 6), a significant problem was discovered involving
the low-frequency suppression scheme. When a large transient
voltage appeared at the input of the preamplifier (similar to that
accompanying a transmit event), the drain-source voltage of the
triode-region device M8 (M9) was large enough that a charge
was drained from the MOScap, M12 (M13), in the active load.
This changed the bias point enough to significantly lower the
overall mid-band gain of the preamplifier. A temporary solution
was implemented in which the LowFreqAdj bias was dynamically tuned such that after each transmit event some of the charge
was allowed to return onto M12 (M13), though the gain and
dynamic range of the overall preamplifier was still degraded.

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Fig. 13. C-mode images acquired with the prototype system of a custom-made edge phantom, which consisted of 10% acrylamide gel (c = 1545 m/s) having one
speckle-generating region and one nonspeckle-generating region. The geometry of this edge phantom is such that an ideal C-mode image acquisition should produce
an image with speckle in the bottom half and an absence of speckle (anechoic region) in the top half. The images were formed using pure time-delay beamforming
(TD), conventional baseband demodulated I/Q beamforming (IQ), and DSIQ beamforming (DSIQ) methods for f#s of 0.5, 1, and 2. Hann window apodization
was used. The images were normalized, logarithmically compressed, and mapped so as to present image intensity over the range 20 to 0 dB. One-dimensional
integrated cross sections of the edge phantom images in elevation were formed by performing a 2-D spline interpolation (8x) on the original absolute image,
summing in azimuth, and then plotting the normalized, logarithmically compressed result.

Another factor influencing image quality is the use of the

DSIQ beamforming algorithm, which makes concessions in
image quality to provide the dramatic hardware savings exploited by the Sonic Window device. However, as illustrated
in Figs. 12 and 13, the C-mode images formed using DSIQ
beamforming exhibit very little difference from the conventional time-delay and I/Q methods. While it can be argued
that the transducer, interconnect, and front-end shortcomings
described above dominate the subtler differences in image
quality that exist between the three beamforming approaches,
the integrated 1-D cross sections in Figs. 12 and 13 offer
further insight. Here, the differences between beamforming
approaches are more evidentparticularly at lower f#sbut
the overall performance is still similar. DSIQ and conventional
I/Q beamforming appear to behave almost identically, and
both deviate from TD beamforming at lower f#s because both

approaches rely on phase rotation to achieve delays and are thus

susceptible to focusing errors toward the edge of the aperture.
The integrated 1-D cross-sections at higher f#s demonstrate
closer agreement among all the beamforming approaches.
These trends are similar to the findings in [27], where the DSIQ
algorithm was shown to compare favorably with conventional
beamforming techniques in a B-mode commercial ultrasound
scanner not suffering from the grating lobe and channel-loss
issues present in our experimental system. DSIQ beamforming
was also shown to be surprisingly robust to error in the assumed
center frequency, which would cause the S/H clocks to be
offset at phase differences other than 90 . According to Fig. 6
in [27], an 18% error in the assumed center frequency (70
phase difference between I and Q samples) led to a loss of only
1 dB in contrast performance. Additionally, while narrowband
signals are the ideal for DSIQ beamforming, reasonable image

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quality was obtained with fractional bandwidths as high as

55% [27].
Ultimately, the target clinical application for the Sonic
Window device dictates the losses in image quality that can be
tolerated in exchange for the low cost, compact size, and simple
operation that it demands. A consequence of the transmit
protection scheme is the lack of focusing on transmit and its associated losses in SNR and penetration. However, as discussed
in [35], the Sonic Window is intended for imaging shallow
targets, which significantly relaxes the penetration requirement,
and all image data is captured in parallel after each transmit
event, so a plane wave transmit is appropriate. Furthermore,
the protection scheme significantly simplifies the transmitter
hardware [27], facilitates a flip-chip interconnect scheme in
future versions of the Sonic Window (avoiding SNR losses
through cabling) [35], and is critical in enabling the use of a
2-D array, which provides array gain benefits and compensates
for slightly worse clutter in azimuth with much better performance in elevation [40]. Similarly, a consequence of DSIQ
beamforming is its preference for a smaller signal bandwidth,
which corresponds to an increase in C-plane thickness. Our
experimental system used a 3.3-MHz center frequency and 30%
fractional bandwidth generating a slice thickness of approximately 770 m. However, this is more than adequate to satisfy
our initial goal of visualizing a 5-mm-diameter blood vessel in
the arm for needle or IV line insertion [40] and slice thickness
will decrease as the system center frequency increases in future
prototypes.
The experimental system described in this paper served
well as confirmation of our general design approach, novel
technologies, and performance tradeoffs. Several modifications
will be necessary to realize the long-term concept of a clinically
viable Sonic Window device. The grating lobe and channel
loss issues can be addressed through an improved interconnect
approach providing smaller transducer element pitch and increased channel count. By designing receive electronics ICs
with a channel pitch that corresponds to the transducer element
pitch, a flip-chip interconnect scheme is possible, providing a
straightforward connection between transducer elements and
receive channels with little or no routing [8], [30], [31], [41],
[42]. If DSIQ beamforming is used, digitization and memory
can be brought on-chip along with the front-end receive electronics, enabling the simultaneous capture of all the complex
data needed to form a C-scan imagea simple depth control
would vary the timing of the global S/H clock signals. Our
experimental system took as long as two minutes to form one
C-scan image, which included time for 512 transmits, memory
transfer of the volume data from the acquisition card, and
processing on the PC. However, with parallel on-chip data
capture, DSIQ beamforming could be performed in real-time
by a low cost, commercially available DSP [27], [42]. The
significantly low pulse repetition frequency (as low as the
frame rate) requirements of such an approach can be exploited
by switching off the transmit and receive electronics in between
transmit events to save power and prevent overheating, even
allowing for multiple transmit events for signal averaging to
improve SNR [35] and compounding techniques for speckle
reduction [27].

VII. CONCLUSION
A high-channel-count experimental ultrasound system was
constructed and experimentally shown to successfully form
pulse-echo images of a wire target and edge phantom. Images
formed using the DSIQ beamforming algorithm compared favorably with that of conventional time-delay beamforming and
baseband demodulated I/Q beamforming. Image quality was
impacted predominantly by grating lobes caused by suboptimal
transducer element spatial sampling and routing errors in the
transducer PCB coupled with poor surface mount connector
contact. Future efforts will focus on reducing element pitch
and utilizing alternative interconnect approaches to provide
significant improvements in image quality in the future Sonic
Window system.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank E. Girard for her contribution
to the transducer design, E. Brush for his assistance in probing
the transducer interconnect, and M. Oberhardt for constructing
our phantoms.
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Michael I. Fuller (S01M06) received the B.S. and

M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, in 2001 and the
Ph.D. degree in biomedical engineering, University
of Virginia in 2007.
After completing his doctoral work, he joined
PocketSonics, Inc.a startup devoted to low-cost
and handheld ultrasound systemswhere he is
currently a Research Scientist and involved in
system and integrated circuit development. He is
also a Visiting Research Scientist at the University
of Virginia. His research interests include analog and mixed-signal integrated
circuit design, ultrasound imaging, and medical devices.

Karthik Ranganathan (S00M05) received the

B.E. degree in biomedical engineering from the
University of Mumbai, Mumbai, India, in 1999 and
the Ph.D. degree in biomedical engineering from the
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, in 2005. His
research interests during his doctoral work included
ultrasound beamforming, signal processing, and
angular scatter measurement techniques, and his
dissertation explored the two extremesoptimal
beamforming for the best attainable image quality
in state of the art systems and beamforming for very
low-cost systems.
After his doctoral work, he joined PocketSonics, Inc.a startup devoted to
low-cost and handheld ultrasound systemswhere he is currently a Research
Scientist and involved in system and beamformer development. He is also a
Visiting Research Scientist at the University of Virginia.

Shiwei Zhou (S03M06) was born in Beijing,

China, in 1974. He received the B.S. and M.S.
degrees in optical-electrical engineering from the
Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, in 1996 and
1999, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Virginia,
Charlottesville, in 2005.
He joined the Biomedical Engineering Department, University of Virginia, in 2000. He is
currently a Research Scientist at Philips Research
North America, Briarcliff Manor, NY. His research
interests are finite-element analysis (FEA) modeling for various ultrasound
transducers and applications, new transducer techniques and optimization,
high-intensity focused ultrasound, and digital signal processing techniques in
ultrasound.

Travis N. Blalock (M91) received the B.S. and M.S.

degrees from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville,
in 1985 and 1988, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree
from Auburn University, Auburn, AL, in 1991 under
the direction of R. Jaeger.
In 1991, he joined Agilent Laboratories, Palo
Alto, CA, (formerly Hewlett-Packard Labs) where
he was involved in several mixed-signal CMOS
design efforts, including disk read channel filters, a
massively parallel analog cross-correlation processor
with integrated image capture, and high-resolution
color liquid crystal on silicon microdisplays. He joined the faculty of the
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville,
in 1998. He is currently leading a mixed-signal CMOS research effort at the
University of Virginia focusing on integrated signal processing and imaging in
medical ultrasound and biotelemetry.
Dr. Blalock is a member of Tau Beta Pi and Eta Kappa Nu.

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John A. Hossack (S90M92SM02) was born

in Glasgow, U.K., in 1964. Hereceived the B.Eng.
Hons(I) degree in electrical and electronic engineering from Strathclyde University, Glasgow, in
1986 and the Ph.D. degree in electrical and electronic
engineering in 1990. From 1990 to 1992, he was a
Postdoctoral Researcher in the E. L. Ginzton Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, working
under B. A. Aulds guidance. His research was on
modeling of 0:3 and 1:3 piezoelectric composite
transducers. In 1992, he joined Acuson, Mountain
View, CA, initially working on transducer design. During his time at Acuson,
his interests diversified into beamforming and 3-D imaging. Dr. Hossack was
made a Fellow of Acuson for excellence in technical contribution in 1999.
In 2000, he joined the Biomedical Engineering Department, University of
Virginia, Charlottesville. His current research interests relate to transducer
design, 3-D ultrasound imaging, and contrast microbubble usage in ultrasound
for imaging and therapy.

William F. Walker (S95M96) received the B.S.E.

and Ph.D. degrees from Duke University, Durham,
NC, in 1990 and 1995, respectively. His dissertation
explored fundamental limits on the accuracy of adaptive ultrasound imaging.
After completing his doctoral work, he stayed on
at Duke as an Assistant Research Professor in the
Department of Biomedical Engineering. At the same
time, he served as a Senior Scientist and President of
NovaSon Corporation, Durham. In 1997 he joined
the faculty of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, being promoted to Associate
Professor in 2003. He is an active founder in two ultrasound-based startup
companies in Charlottesville: PocketSonics, Inc. and HemoSonics, LLC. His
research interests include aperture domain processing, beamforming, angular
scatter imaging, tissue elasticity imaging, low-cost system architectures, and
time delay and motion estimation.