JPS62140065A - Transmitting-receiving circuit of ultrasonic image pickup apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable the integration of a large number of semiconductors and to simplify a system, in the integration of the semiconductors of a large number of channels, by reducing the number of channels to suppress power consumption per one block. CONSTITUTION:A transmitter-receiver is divided into a large number of blocks to output only the min. channel from one block and each block is divided so as to be able to form a caliber by the output from a selected block. FET is used in a preamplifier 60 and a transmitting driver 20 in the divided one block 80 to allow a drive itself to have switch function. The driving of a vibrator block group 40 is performed by selecting the transmitting signal obtained from a high voltage driving power source 10 by the transmitting driver 20 being a FET switch group and applying the same to one of the vibrator block group 40 through a tuning circuit 30. That is, a transmitting control signal is applied to the gate of the transmitting driver 20 from a decoder 50 on the basis of a signal of a state (i) to operate only one circuit.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Application of the Invention] The present invention relates to a wave transmitting/receiving circuit for an electronic scanning ultrasonic imaging device, and particularly to a configuration of a wave transmitting/receiving circuit suitable for integrating a large number of channels.

[Background of the invention]

Conventionally, this type of wave transmitting/receiving circuit has a switch paired with the vibrator on the vibrator side, and the wave transmitting driver and preamplifier are available in a number of apertures. The transducer is operating, and once again the circuit configuration is not suitable for semiconductor integration.

This method provides a transducer paired with a vibrator and divides it into blocks to create a configuration suitable for semiconductor integration. As an example of one-to-one correspondence,
There is JP-A-52-1:H679, but it does not mention block division.

[Purpose of the invention]

An object of the present invention is to provide a wave transmitting/receiving circuit configuration suitable for downsizing using semiconductor integration technology in a wave transmitting/receiving circuit that selects a desired transducer and forms an ultrasonic beam in transmitting/receiving an ultrasonic transducer. It is about providing.

[Summary of the invention]

Conventional electronic scanning ultrasonic imaging devices select transducers using high-voltage multiplexers, and have transmitter/receiver circuits in which all of the channels corresponding to the aperture are in operation. The number of integrated channels is limited, and oscillation is a concern in the preamplifier. The present invention reduces power consumption and prevents oscillation due to crosstalk by reducing the number of operating channels in a large number of integrated channels.

[Embodiments of the invention]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of a block division method for a wave transmitting/receiving circuit according to the present invention.

FIG. 1(a) shows the arrangement of ultrasonic transducers, where each block of numbers corresponds to one element. The first example shows an example in which the number of elements is N according to the block division, - the aperture is made up of M elements, - the elements are shifted one by one to transmit and receive waves, and the circuit operating in one block has one channel.
It is figure (b). In other words, first the horizontal first row from 1 to M operates, and in the next wave transmission/reception, the elements from 2 to M+1 operate, so instead of element No. 1, the element M+L in the second horizontal row below operates. do. When the operating state is represented by Si, i is 1 to (N-
There are M+1) combinations, and in all combinations, if a column is considered, only one element is required to operate. In the figure, the diagonal line at the top right corresponds to the state of SxH÷3. Therefore, in this case, blocks are formed for each vertical group in FIG. 1(b) and divided into M blocks.

FIG. 2 shows the circuit configuration in one block 80 in the embodiment of the wave transmitting/receiving circuit formed using the block division method described above.

The feature of this configuration is that by using FETs in the preamplifier itself and the transmission driver, the driver itself has a switching function. To drive the transducer element group shown in 40, the transmitted wave signal obtained from the high-voltage drive type g1 is transmitted to the FE.
Selected by T switch group 2o and passed through tuning circuit group 3o,
This is done by applying the voltage to one of the vibrator groups 40. That is, a wave transmission control signal is applied from the decoder 50 to the gate of the FET switch group 2o by the signal in the state Si, and only the - circuit operates. For example, set this block to
Assuming that the leftmost block in Figure (b) is in the state 82M+3, the FET switch group 20 is the fourth 1" from the top.
Only the E'r switch operates, and the 3M+Lth transducer in the transducer array shown in FIG. 1 (, 1) is driven. On the other hand, the received ultrasonic signal is transmitted from the transducer group 40 to the tuned circuit group 3.
0, a, is led to a preamplifier group 60 via an isolator group 70. At this time, only the seventh to fourth preamplifier group 6o is operated by the select output of the decoder 50. Therefore, in the wave transmitting/receiving circuit Flocook 80, only the reception signal of the 3M+1st transducer in FIG. 1(a) is amplified and outputted to the output line 81.

At the same time, the second professional player from the left in Figure 1(b)
In the link, create only 3M+2nd element l'j+, :3
In the second block, the number 2M+3]1 is the number one! I! I
In the block I, M, and the 4th block, by operating the 3Mth element, the (2M+3)th transducer and up to the (3M+2)th transducer will operate in order to form the aperture. .

Figure 3(a) is a block diagram showing the entire wave transmitting/receiving circuit block and decoder for element selection when the number of elements arranged in the transducer is N=10 and the number of elements forming the wave transmitting/receiving aperture is M=5. It is. 80a to 80b represent wave transmitting/receiving circuit blocks, respectively, and 81 to B in the column from the left end in FIG. 1(b).
This corresponds to 5. However, each transmitter/receiver circuit block handles 1 (1 + number of children N/M is 2 in this example).
It is. Therefore, each transmitter/receiver circuit block has the configuration shown in FIG. 2, and only 1-'ET switch preamplifiers and the like are provided. The interrelationship between flocs is of the form J
r! There is a line where the blocks meet H when ASi enters.

The decoder 50 includes a decoder 51 that emits a degaud signal that closes the element to be selected in each block in accordance with the signal Si;
Transmission control pulse ζτ is applied to each block according to this signal.
, and output circuits 58 to 5e that emit reception control pulses ζτ.
is used. The output circuits 5a to 5e have variable delay circuits, and the amount of delay of ζτ can be selected for each output circuit according to the decoded signal to achieve transmission focus. The time chart between the blocks in this case is shown in 83rd section (b). φj indicates a transmission control pulse, ζi indicates a reception control pulse, and the numbers between the transmission pulses indicate the row numbers in FIG. 1(b).

Another embodiment of the invention is shown in FIG. Instead of the preamplifier 60 with multiplexer function in the embodiment of FIG.
A switch 90 is provided to select one of the received signals based on the output of the decoder 50, and only one preamplifier 100 is provided. Other numerals refer to similar parts in FIG. Note that, except for the isolator 70, the switch 90 may be a switch including isolation.

FIG. 5 shows yet another embodiment, in which a preamplifier 110 having no multiplexer function is used in place of the preamplifier group 60 of the embodiment of FIG. , further connected to an amplifier 100. FIG. 6 shows yet another embodiment, which is closer to the conventional configuration. The driver switch 120 and the preamplifier 100 are integrated into one, and the selection switch 140 is connected to the transducer group 40. 130 is an isolator having a selection function.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the present invention, in the semiconductor integration of multiple channels of the wave transmitting/receiving circuit of an ultrasonic imaging device, by suppressing the power consumption per block, a large number of channels can be integrated, and the system can be simplified.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an embodiment of the block division method of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a circuit of one block that implements the above method, and FIG. Diagrams showing the configuration diagram and tie 11 chart, Figures 4 and 5,
FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing different embodiments of the above technique. N... Number of transducers, M... Diameter number of transducers, Sj... State number, φj... Transmission control pulse phase, ζi... Receiving control pulse phase, 10... High voltage power supply, 20... Line driver row, 30... R, L tuning circuit, 40...
・Resonator block group, 50...decoder, 60...
Preamplifier (with multiplexer function), 70... Isolator, 80... Block, 58-5e...
Decoder output circuit, 90...-' 01 multiplexer, 110... Preamplifier group, 120... Driver switch, 130... Isolator (with switch function) 140... High voltage switch group.
,. Agent Patent attorney Katsuo Ogawa・、、・' 口（αツL (b) 3rd (b) 42nd δi

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. Transmission and reception of waves by an electronic scan type ultrasound imaging device that forms an ultrasound beam and obtains an ultrasound image by controlling the phase of the transmission and reception signals of a plurality of arrayed ultrasound transducers. The circuit is characterized by having a transmitter and a receiver having a switch function corresponding to each vibrator, and also having a decoder to control the on/off state, thereby controlling the phase. Transmission/reception circuit for ultrasound imaging equipment. 2. In the wave transmitting/receiving circuit according to claim 1,
A transmitting/receiving device for an ultrasonic imaging device characterized in that a transducer is divided into a large number of blocks, each block outputs only the minimum number of channels, and the blocks are divided so that an aperture can be formed by the output from a selected block. wave circuit.