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AssigneeKoninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.
InventorGeorge Brock-Fisher
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A beamformer for an ultrasound imaging system is provided, the ultrasound imaging system having a probe having a transducer array for transmitting and receiving analog signals, and a personal computer. The beamformer includes a beamformer software application module configured for execution by the computing device for performing at least partial beamforming processing on digital data transmitted between the transducer array and the computing device, and means for exchanging signals and data between the transducer array and the computing device and performing at least one of A/D and D/A conversions on the exchanged signals and data. In the preferred embodiment, the beamformer further includes a module integrated within architecture of the computing device, wherein the integrated module is preferably Random Access Memory (RAM) included in storage means of the computing device. A method is further provided for performing a transmit beamforming process in an ultrasound system having a computing device and a probe including a transducer array, the method including the steps of performing transmit beamforming processing in the computing device in accordance with transmit settings to generate digital transmit data, storing the digital transmit in the data storage memory, retrieving the digital transmit data from the storage memory, converting the digital transmit data to analog transmit signals, and transmitting the analog transmit signals to the transducer array. A method is further provided for performing a receive beamforming process in an ultrasound system having a computing device including storage memory, an interface module and a probe including a transducer array, the method including the steps of receiving analog signals from the transducer array, converting the analog signals to digital data, storing the digital data in the storage memory, retrieving the digital data from the storage memory, and performing receive beamforming operations on the digital data by the computing device.
A beamformer for an ultrasound imaging system, the ultrasound imaging system having a probe having a transducer array for transmitting and receiving analog RF signals, and a computing device, the beamformer comprising:
A beamformer for an ultrasound imaging system, the ultrasound imaging system having a probe having a transducer array for transmitting and receiving analog signals, and a computing device having at least storage memory and a central processor coupled to the storage memory, the beamformer comprising:
A method for performing a transmit beamforming process in an ultrasound system having a computing device and a probe including a transducer array, the method comprising the steps of:
A method for performing a receive beamforming process in an ultrasound system having a computing device including storage memory, an interface module and a probe including a transducer array, the method comprising the steps of:
An interface module of an ultrasound imaging system having a transducer array for transmitting and receiving analog RF signals, and a computing device that executes beamforming software for performing at least partial beamforming processing on digital data transmitted between the transducer array and the computing device, the interface module comprising:
A beamformer application software module executable on a computing device of an ultrasound imaging system having a transducer array for transmitting and receiving analog RF signals, the computing device, and an interface module for exchanging signals and data between the transducer array and the computing device, and for performing at least one of A/D and D/A conversions on the exchanged signals and data, the beamformer software application module comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.