A front-end ASIC with high-voltage transmit switching and receive digitization for forward-looking intravascular ultrasound

This paper presents a front-end ASIC for forward-looking intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging. The ASIC is intended to be mounted at the tip of a catheter and can interface a total of 80 piezo-electric transducer elements with an imaging systems using only 4 cables, thus significantly reducing the system complexity compared to the prior art. It is capable of switching high-voltage transmit pulses to 16 transmit elements, and capturing the resulting echo signals using 64 multiplexed receive elements. The ASIC digitizes the received signals locally, providing more robust communication than prior analog approaches. Measurements show that the ASIC effectively switches transmit pulses up to 30 V, and digitizes echo signals with a bandwidth of 16 MHz, while consuming only 10 mW. Acoustic measurements in combination with a prototype transducer array demonstrate pulse transmission and reception. Finally, a B-mode image of a needle phantom demonstrates the imaging capability.

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