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US 10,340,867 B2Granted
Amplifier with built in time gain compensation for ultrasound applications
AssigneeButterfly Network, Inc.
InventorsAmandeep Singh, Kailiang Chen, Tyler S. Ralston
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Abstract
An ultrasound circuit comprising a trans-impedance amplifier (TIA) with built-in time gain compensation functionality is described. The TIA is coupled to an ultrasonic transducer to amplify an electrical signal generated by the ultrasonic transducer in response to receiving an ultrasound signal. The TIA is, in some cases, followed by further analog and digital processing circuitry.
Claims21
An ultrasound apparatus, comprising:
- an ultrasonic transducer to provide an analog electrical signal;
- an amplifier having time gain compensation (TGC) functionality coupled to the ultrasonic transducer and configured to receive and amplify the analog electrical signal by a time-dependent amount;
- wherein:
- the amplifier comprises amplification circuitry and feedback circuitry with a variable impedance;
- and
- the feedback circuitry comprises a plurality of resistors in a series arrangement, and wherein a subset of the plurality of resistors have respective resistance values that increase sequentially in a logarithmic fashion.
3 more elements
An ultrasound circuit, comprising:
- an ultrasonic transducer;
- an analog signal processing chain coupled to the ultrasonic transducer;
- and
- an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), wherein the analog signal processing chain is coupled electrically between the ultrasonic transducer and the ADC, wherein the analog signal processing chain includes a combined trans-impedance amplifier (TIA) and time gain compensation (TGC) circuit;
- and
- a plurality of ultrasonic transducers including the ultrasonic transducer and a plurality of respective combined TIA and TGC circuits coupled to respective ultrasonic transducers, the plurality of respective combined TIA and TGC circuits including the combined TIA and TGC circuit, wherein the ultrasound apparatus further comprises an averaging circuit coupled to the plurality of respective combined TIA and TGC circuits.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.