Arama Sonuçları

Listeleniyor 1 - 8 / 8
  • Yayın
    Co-array optimization of CMUT arrays for forward-looking IVUS
    (IEEE, 2009-09) Tekeş, Coşkun; Karaman, Mustafa; Değertekin, Fahrettin Levent
    The ring annular array structure is a preferred configuration for implementing Forward-Looking IVUS (FLIVUS) catheters as it allows for volumetric imaging as well as use of a guidewire at the center. CMUT technology is promising for these arrays especially with the flexibility of locating array elements on the circular donut area efficiently. To take advantage of this flexibility, in this study, we introduce a new co-array sampling strategy that improves imaging performance while keeping the number of firings at a level suitable for real-time imaging. The presented co-array sampling strategy is based on the idea of adjusting the element density of the co-array rings in radial direction to suppress side lobes. In non-uniform sampling of the co-array with a given number of firings, the inter-element distances are adjusted both in radial and angular direction from inner ring to outer ring to fit a given apodization function. To test the imaging performance, we performed numerical simulations of the co-array with non-uniform sampling fitting to the raised-cosine apodization. The simulation results shows that sidelobe level can be reduced more than 10 dB by using non-uniform co-array sampling. This approach does use uniform weighting of all Tx and Rx elements in beamforming, and hence does not cause any SNR loss for apodization.
  • Yayın
    Evaluation of CMUT annular arrays for side-looking IVUS
    (IEEE, 2009) Şişman, Alper; Zahorian, Jaime S.; Gürün, Gökçe; Karaman, Mustafa; Balantekin, Müjdat; Değertekin, Fahrettin Levent; Hasler, Paul E.
    Side-looking (SL) IVUS probes are extensively used for management of cardiovascular diseases. Currently SL-IVUS imaging probes use either a single rotating transducer element or solid-state arrays. Probes with single rotating piezoelectric transducer have simple front-end, but have fixed focused operation, and suffers from motion artifacts. Solid-state SL-IVUS imaging probes use piezoelectric transducer arrays and electronic beam-forming. Synthetic phased array processing of signals detected with small-sized elements in these arrays limits the SNR achievable with these probes. In this study, we explore a new SL-IVUS probe architecture employing rotating phased annular CMUT arrays. We tested and compared imaging performance of the existing and proposed probe configurations through simulated point spread functions. We also two fabricated sample annular array designs operating at 20-MHz and 50-MHz. Our experimental measurements on the 20-MHz array in oil shows 105% fractional bandwidth. The 50-MHz array with parylene coating shows approximately 40% fractional bandwidth measured in water. We also present imaging results acquired from wire-targets to test the experimental point-spread functions.
  • Yayın
    An Analog beamformer for integrated high-frequency medical ultrasound imaging
    (IEEE, 2011) Gürün, Gökçe; Zahorian, Jaime; Tekeş, Coşkun; Karaman, Mustafa; Hasler, Paul E.; Değertekin, Fahrettin Levent
    We designed and fabricated a dynamic receive beamforming integrated circuit (IC) in 0.35-mu m CMOS technology. This beamformer is suitable for integration with an ultrasound annular array for high-frequency (30-50 MHz) intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging. The beamformer IC is capable of buffering, delaying and preamplification for 8 receive channels. We explored an analog delay cell based on a currentmode first-order all-pass filter, which is used as the basic building block to form an analog dynamic delay line. We also explored a bandwidth enhancement method on the delay cell that improved the overall bandwidth of the delay line by a factor of 6. Each delay cell consumes 2.1 mW of power and is capable of generating a tunable delay between 1.75 ns to 2.5 ns, enabling dynamic receive beamforming over a focal range from 1.4 mm to 2 mm. We successfully integrated the fabricated beamformer IC with an 8-element annular array. Our experimental test results demonstrated the desired buffering, preamplification and delaying capabilities of the beamformer.
  • Yayın
    Forward-looking IVUS imaging using a dual-annular ring CMUT array: Experimental results
    (IEEE, 2007) Güldiken, Rasim Oytun; Zahorian, Jaime S.; Gürün, Gökçe; Qureshi, Muhammad Shakeel; Balantekin, Müjdat; Tekeş, Coşkun; Hasler, Paul E.; Karaman, Mustafa; Carlier, Stephane; Değertekin, Fahrettin Levent
    This paper presents the experimental results on forward-looking Intravascular ultrasound (FL-IVUS) using dual-annular-ring CMUT arrays. The array has a diameter of 1mm including bondpads which consists of separate, concentric 24 transmit and 32 receive ring arrays built on the same silicon substrate. This configuration has the potential for Independent optimization of each array and uses the silicon area more effectively without any drawback. For imaging experiments, we designed and constructed a custom integrated circuit using a standard 0.5 mu m CMOS process for data acquisition. A sample pulse-echo signal received from the oil-air Interface (plane reflector) at 6mm had a center frequency of 11MHz with 95% fractional 6-dB bandwidth. The measured SNR of the echo was 24 dB with no averaging. B-scan image of a wire-phantom was generated to test the resolution.
  • Yayın
    Annular CMUT arrays for side looking intravascular ultrasound imaging
    (IEEE, 2007) Zahorian, Jaime; Güldiken, Rasim Oytun; Gürün, Gökçe; Qureshi, Muhammad Shakeel; Balantekin, Müjdat; Değertekin, Fahrettin Levent; Carlier, Stephane; Şişman, Alper; Karaman, Mustafa
    Although side looking intravascular ultrasound (SL-IVUS) imaging systems using single element piezoelectric transducers set the resolution standard in the assessment of the extent of coronary artery disease, improvements in transducer performance are needed to perform harmonic imaging and high resolution imaging of vulnerable plaque. With their small channel count; annular arrays exploiting the inherent broad bandwidth of CMUTs and electronic focusing capability of integrated electronics provide a path for desired SL-IVUS imaging catheters. In this paper, we first describe the design, low temperature fabrication of an 8401 mu m diameter, 8 element CMUT annular array. Testing of the individual elements in oil shows a uniform device behavior with 100% fractional bandwidth around 20MHz without including the effects of attenuation and diffraction. We also present linear scan imaging results obtained on wire targets in oil, tissue and tissue mimicking phantoms using both unfocused and dynamically focused transducers. The results for axial and lateral resolution are in agreement predicted by the simulations and show the feasibility of this approach for high resolution SL-IVUS imaging.
  • Yayın
    Front-end CMOS electronics for monolithic integration with CMUT arrays: Circuit design and initial experimental results
    (2008) Gürün, Gökçe; Qureshi, Muhammad Shakeel; Balantekin, Müjdat; Güldiken, Rasim Oytun; Zahorian, Jaime S.; Peng, Shengyu; Basu, Arindam; Karaman, Mustafa; Hasler, Paul E.; Değertekin, Fahrettin Levent
    This paper discusses design of CMOS-ASICs for monolithic integration of CMUT arrays by post-CMOS fabrication. We describe design strategies for monolithic integration and demonstrate the advantages of CMUT-on-CMOS approach. On the same wafer, separate sets of IC cells are designed to interface different types of CMUT arrays for IVUS and ICE applications. Circuit topologies include resistive feedback transimpedance amplifiers on the receiver side, along with multiplexers and buffers. Gains and bandwidths of receiving amplifiers are optimized separately to fit different array specifications such as number of elements, element size and operation bandwidth. To drive CMUTs a high voltage pulser array is designed in the same 3.3V unmodified CMOS technology by combining existing technological layers in an unconventional way. CMUT arrays are then built on top of the custom made 8" wafer containing these circuits fabricated in a 0.35µm standard CMOS process. We present initial characterization of the CMO electronics and pulse-echo measurements obtained post-CMOS fabricated CMUT elements.
  • Yayın
    Annular-ring CMUT arrays for forward-looking IVUS: Transducer characterization and imaging
    (IEEE, 2006-02) Değertekin, Fahrettin Levent; Güldiken, Rasim Oytun; Karaman, Mustafa
    In this study, a 64-element, 1.15-mm diameter annular-ring capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) array was characterized and used for forward-looking intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging tests. The array was manufactured using low-temperature processes suitable for CMOS electronics integration oil a single chip. The measured radiation pattern of a 43 X 140- mu m(2) array element depicts a 40 degrees view angle for forward-looking imaging around a 15-MHz center frequency in agreement with theoretical models. Pulse-echo measurements show a -10-dB fractional bandwidth of 104% around 17 MHz for wire targets 2.5 mm away from the array in vegetable oil. For imaging and SNR measurements, RF A-scan data sets from various targets were collected using all interconnect scheme forming a 32-element array configuration. An experimental point spread function was obtained and compared with simulated and theoretical array responses, showing good agreement. Therefore, this study demonstrates that annular-ring CMUT arrays fabricated with CMOS-compatible processes are capable of forward-looking IVUS imaging, and the developed modeling tools can be used to design improved IVUS imaging arrays.
  • Yayın
    A tunable analog delay element for high-frequency dynamic beamforming
    (IEEE, 2009) Gürün, Gökçe; Şişman, Alper; Zahorian, Jaime S.; Satır, Sarp; Karaman, Mustafa; Hasler, Paul E.; Değertekin, Fahrettin Levent
    Implementing beamforming for high frequency arrays is challenging because of the accurate delay requirements at high frequencies. High frequency digital beamforming is not suitable for catheter based applications as a large number of cables is required between the array and the external beamformer. A possible solution is to perform analog beamforming on an integrated circuit adjacent or monolithically integrated to the imaging array. In this study, we introduce an improved voltage in voltage out low pass filter as an analog delay cell for high frequency dynamic beamformers. This circuit can generate three times more delay with a given bandwidth when compared to conventional low pass filters. Delay of the circuit is tunable and the gain of the cell is inherently very close to unity. The proposed delay cell operates single ended and therefore is more suitable for CMUT operation which generates single ended output. We designed a test beamformer for a 30MHz, equal area, annular array with 100% bandwidth using the proposed delay cell and the unit-delay focusing architecture. Required delays are implemented using a delay line made up of improved delay elements with tunable delays. To demonstrate functionality we designed and fabricated a custom front-end IC in a 0.5µm standard CMOS process. The IC chip consists of 8 transimpedance amplifiers, voltage-to-current converters, the analog dynamic beamformer, and two buffers. We present results of preliminary imaging experiments that demonstrate the focusing capability.