Low pin count high voltage ultrasound transmitter and method therefor
AssigneeSupertex, Inc.
InventorJimes Lei
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An integrated single channel or multi-channel ultrasound transmitter that minimizes the number of input connections to a controller such as an FPGA, field programmable gate array, or a custom integrated circuit in an ultrasound system. The method is accomplished by integrating, in low voltage logic, a means to store and or program the patterns required for the transmitter output. The number of logic input connections can be further reduced by further integrating, in low voltage logic, programmable individual time delays and frequency divider for each transmitter output.
Claims18
An ultrasound transmitter comprising:
- control logic circuitry having a single input trigger to switch to at least two different voltage levels;
- and
- a high voltage output driver circuit coupled to the control logic circuitry.
An ultrasound transmitter comprising:
- a control logic circuit having a single input trigger to switch to at least two different voltage levels wherein the control circuitry comprises:
- a shift register for each voltage level output of the transmitter, wherein the shift register defines a high voltage output pattern for each voltage level output of the transmitter;
- and
- a latch coupled to the shift register for sending data to the shift register to define the voltage output pattern for each voltage level output of the transmitter;
- and
- a high voltage output driver circuit coupled to the control logic circuitry.
A multi-channel ultrasound system comprising:
- an ultrasound transmitter for each channel of the multi-channel ultrasound system;
- a single input trigger to switch to at least two different voltage levels for each ultrasound transmitter.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.