Integrated front-end preamplifier dedicated to ultrasonic receivers

Author

Chebli, R. ; Kassem, A. ; Sawan, M.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Ecole Polytech. de Montreal, Que., Canada

Volume

3

fYear

2001

fDate

6/23/1905 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1103

Abstract

This paper concerns the design and implementation of an integrated front-end preamplifier dedicated to ultrasonic receivers. A new preamplification technique composed of a logarithmic amplifier and followed by a programmable-gain amplifier is proposed. The logarithmic amplifier, based on a True Logarithmic Amplifier (TLA) technique, largely amplifies small amplitude signals, and moderately the large amplitude ones. The programmable-gain amplifier, based on Timing Gain Compensator (TGC), is used to compensate signal attenuation caused by its traveling several human body tissues. Spectre simulations of both the TLA and TGC show unity gain bandwidths of 100 MHz and 127 MHz respectively when driving a load of 1 pF. The implementation of this system (TLA, TGC) is done using CMOS 0.35 μm technology. The total chip area is 7.2 mm² including the digital part needed to program the TGC

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; biomedical electronics; biomedical ultrasonics; gain control; mixed analogue-digital integrated circuits; preamplifiers; programmable circuits; ultrasonic equipment; wideband amplifiers; 0.35 micron; 100 MHz; 127 MHz; CMOS technology; biomedical US receivers; human body tissues; integrated front-end preamplifier; logarithmic amplifier; mixed-signal IC; preamplification technique; programmable-gain amplifier; signal attenuation compensation; timing gain compensator; true logarithmic amplifier technique; ultrasonic receivers; Acoustic pulses; Biomedical imaging; CMOS technology; Humans; Medical diagnostic imaging; Microprocessors; Optical imaging; Preamplifiers; Timing; Ultrasonic imaging;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Electronics, Circuits and Systems, 2001. ICECS 2001. The 8th IEEE International Conference on

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7057-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICECS.2001.957408

Filename

957408