Abstract
As traditional ultrasonic imaging systems (UIS) are expensive, bulky, and power-consuming, miniaturized and portable UIS have been developed and widely utilized in the biomedical field. The performance of integrated circuits (ICs) in portable UIS obviously affects the effectiveness and quality of ultrasonic imaging. In the ICs for UIS, the analog-to-digital converter (ADC) is used to complete the conversion of the analog echo signal received by the analog front end into digital for further processing by a digital signal processing (DSP) or microcontroller unit (MCU). The accuracy and speed of the ADC determine the precision and efficiency of UIS. Therefore, it is necessary to systematically review and summarize the characteristics of different types of ADCs for UIS, which can provide valuable guidance to design and fabricate high-performance ADC for miniaturized high resolution UIS. In this paper, the architecture and performance of ADC for UIS, including successive approximation register (SAR) ADC, sigma-delta (Σ-∆) ADC, pipelined ADC, and hybrid ADC, have been systematically introduced. In addition, comparisons and discussions of different types of ADCs are presented. Finally, this paper is summarized, and presents the challenges and prospects of ADC ICs for miniaturized high resolution UIS.
Highlights
Ultrasonic imaging is one of the most widely used imaging methods in nondestructive testing and medical diagnosis due to its advantages of safety, simplicity, cheapness, penetrability, and non-ionization [1,2,3,4,5,6]
The analog-to-digital converter (ADC), a bridge between the analog world and the digital world, converts the ADC, a bridge between the signal analog world and the digital world, converts t analog signals to digital so that the analog in the baseband can be processed by the analog to digital so that theThe analog signal in the baseband can be have processed by t back-endsignals computer or microprocessor
The results show that the peak values of signal data converters ratio (SNR) and signal-to-noise plus distortion ratio (SNDR) are 81.4 dB and 80.4 dB, respectively, and the power consumption is 24.8 μW at a 1 V power supply voltage and
Summary
Ultrasonic imaging is one of the most widely used imaging methods in nondestructive testing and medical diagnosis due to its advantages of safety, simplicity, cheapness, penetrability, and non-ionization [1,2,3,4,5,6]. The ADC, which realizes the digitalization of the analog echo signals, plays a very important role in the receiving link. In order to achieve the higher resolution and smaller volume for miniaturized UIS, ADC ICs integrated into the portable imaging terminals or even probes are confronted with. ADC is the main power consumption module in the UIS receiving chain. Integration andadvanced small sizeportable of receiver link The recent development prospect of ADC ICs for be miniaturized high noise ratio (SNR), occupied area, andand power consumption must carefully considresolution ered. The recent development and prospect of ADC ICs for miniaturized high approximate register (SAR) ADC, sigma-delta (Σ-∆) ADC, pipelined ADC and hybrid resolution UIS are reviewed to provide valuable suggestions for designing and fabricating.
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