Ultrasound imaging device

An ultrasonic imaging device comprising a plurality of ultrasonic transducers arranged in an array of a plurality of rows and a plurality of columns, the array being divided into a plurality of sub-arrays of neighboring transducers, each comprising m rows and n columns, m and n being integers greater than or equal to 2, the device comprising:

• a control circuit having, for each sub-array:
• a single transmit and/or receive circuit including a transmit circuit comprising a pulse generator and a receive circuit comprising an amplifier;
• and
• a combiner selector and/or splitter selector circuit configurable to couple any and only one of the transducers of the sub-array to the transmit and/or receive circuit of the sub-array, or to simultaneously couple a plurality of the transducers of the sub-array to the transmit and/or receive circuit of the sub-array,
• wherein the control circuit is adapted for individually controlling the combiner selector and/or splitter selector circuits of the different sub-arrays,
• wherein the control circuit is configured to, during a phase of acquisition of an ultrasonic wave of a first type, successively acquire m*n partial images of a body, and then reconstruct the image from the m*n acquired partial images, and
• wherein the control circuit is configured to, at each acquisition of a partial image, in each sub-array, coupled to the transmit and/or receive circuit of the sub-array a single transducer selected among the m*n transducers of the sub-array, and to modify the transducer selected in each sub-array for each new acquisition of a partial image to involve the m*n transducers of each sub-array.