CMOS chip for invasive ultrasound imaging

A very small transmit/receiver chip has been developed for use in an arterial ultrasonic imaging system. In this technique, a solid-state ultrasonic imaging head placed within a small medical catheter is used to provide high quality 360° images of arteries as small as 2 mm in diameter. Novel design and packaging techniques have been used to allow four easily testable 0.86 mm×1.65 mm mixed-signal CMOS die to be placed on a multichip carrier within this 1.83 mm diameter imaging probe. Each chip contains interface circuitry for sixteen transducers including 20 MHz transmit pulsers and receive current amplifiers with approximately 1.3 pA/rt-Hz equivalent input noise performance. The techniques described here are generally applicable to any probe or device with extreme size and performance requirements