Arama Sonuçları

Listeleniyor 1 - 7 / 7
  • Yayın
    Forward-viewing CMUT arrays for medical Imaging
    (IEEE-INST Electrical Electronics Engineers Inc, 2004-07) Demirci, Utkan; Ergün, Arif Sanlı; Oralkan, Ömer; Karaman, Mustafa; Khuri-Yakub, Butrus Thomas
    This paper reports the design and testing of forward-viewing annular arrays fabricated using capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) technology. Recent research studies have shown that CMUTs have broad frequency bandwidth and high-transduction efficiency. One- and two-dimensional CMUT arrays of various sizes already have been fabricated, and their viability for medical imaging applications has been demonstrated. We fabricated 64-element, forward-viewing annular arrays using the standard CMUT fabrication process and carried out experiments to measure the operating frequency, bandwidth, and transmit/receive efficiency of the array elements. The annular array elements, designed for imaging applications in the 20 MHz range, had a resonance frequency of 13.5 MHz in air. The immersion pulse-echo data collected from a plane reflector showed that the devices operate in the 5-26 MHz range with a fractional bandwidth of 135%. The output pressure at the surface of the transducer was measured to be 24 kPa/V. These values translate into a dynamic range of 131.5 dB for I-V excitation in 1-Hz bandwidth with a commercial low noise receiving circuitry. The designed, forward-viewing annular CMUT array is suitable for mounting on the front surface of a cylindrical catheter probe and can provide Doppler information for measurement of blood flow and guiding information for navigation through blood vessels in intravascular ultrasound imaging.
  • Yayın
    Integration of 2D CMUT arrays with front-end electronics for volumetric ultrasound imaging
    (IEEE-INST Electrical Electronics Engineers Inc, 2008-02) Wygant, Ira O.; Zhuang, Xuefeng; Yeh, David T.; Oralkan, Ömer; Ergün, Arif Sanlı; Karaman, Mustafa; Khuri-Yakub, Butrus Thomas
    For three-dimensional (3D) ultrasound imaging, connecting elements of a two-dimensional (2D) transducer array to the imaging system's front-end electronics is a challenge because of the large number of array elements and the small element size. To compactly connect the transducer array with electronics, we flip-chip bond a 2D 16 x 16-element capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) array to a custom-designed integrated circuit (IC). Through-wafer interconnects are used to connect the CMUT elements on the top side of the array with flip-chip bond pads on the back side. The IC provides a 25-V pulser and a transimpedance preamplifier to each element of the array. For each of three characterized devices, the element yield is excellent (99 to 100% of the elements are functional). Center frequencies range from 2.6 MHz to 5.1 MHz. For pulse-echo operation, the average -6-dB fractional bandwidth is as high as 125%. Transmit pressures normalized to the face of the transducer are as high as 339 kPa and input-referred receiver noise is typically 1.2 to 2.1 mPa/root Hz. The flip-chip bonded devices were used to acquire 3D synthetic aperture images of a wire-target phantom. Combining the transducer array and IC, as shown in this paper, allows for better utilization of large arrays, improves receive sensitivity, and may lead to new imaging techniques that depend on transducer arrays that are closely coupled to IC electronics.
  • Yayın
    Monolithic CMUT-on-CMOS integration for intravascular ultrasound applications
    (IEEE-INST Electrical Electronics Engineers Inc, 2011-12) Zahorian, Jaime S.; Hochman, Michael; Xu, Toby; Satır, Sarp; Gürün, Gökçe; Karaman, Mustafa; Değertekin, Fahrettin Levent
    One of the most important promises of capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) technology is integration with electronics. This approach is required to minimize the parasitic capacitances in the receive mode, especially in catheter-based volumetric imaging arrays, for which the elements must be small. Furthermore, optimization of the available silicon area and minimized number of connections occurs when the CMUTs are fabricated directly above the associated electronics. Here, we describe successful fabrication and performance evaluation of CMUT arrays for intravascular imaging on custom-designed CMOS receiver electronics from a commercial IC foundry. The CMUT-on-CMOS process starts with surface isolation and mechanical planarization of the CMOS electronics to reduce topography. The rest of the CMUT fabrication is achieved by modifying a low-temperature micromachining process through the addition of a single mask and developing a dry etching step to produce sloped sidewalls for simple and reliable CMUT-to-CMOS interconnection. This CMUT-to-CMOS interconnect method reduced the parasitic capacitance by a factor of 200 when compared with a standard wire-bonding method. Characterization experiments indicate that the CMUT-on-CMOS elements are uniform in frequency response and are similar to CMUTs simultaneously fabricated on standard silicon wafers without electronics integration. Experiments on a 1.6-mm-diameter dual-ring CMUT array with a center frequency of 15 MHz show that both the CMUTs and the integrated CMOS electronics are fully functional. The SNR measurements indicate that the performance is adequate for imaging chronic total occlusions located 1 cm from the CMUT array.
  • 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
    A miniature real-time volumetric ultrasound imaging system
    (SPIE-Int Soc Optical Engineering, 2005) Wygant, Ira O.; Yeh, David T.; Zhuang, Xuefeng; Nikoozadeh, Amin; Oralkan, Ömer; Ergün, Arif Sanlı; Karaman, Mustafa; Khuri-Yakub, Butrus Thomas
    Progress made in the development of a miniature real-time volumetric ultrasound imaging system is presented. This system is targeted for use in a 5-mm endoscopic channel and will provide real-time, 30-mm deep, volumetric images. It is being developed as a clinically useful device, to demonstrate a means of integrating the front-end electronics with the transducer array, and to demonstrate the advantages of the capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) technology for medical imaging. Presented here is the progress made towards the initial implementation of this system, which is based on a two-dimensional, 16×16 CMUT array. Each CMUT element is 250 µm by 250 µm and has a 5-MHz center frequency. The elements are connected to bond pads on the back side of the array with 400-µm long through-wafer interconnects. The transducer array is flip-chip bonded to a custom-designed integrated circuit that comprises the front-end electronics. The result is that each transducer element is connected to a dedicated pulser and low-noise preamplifier. The pulser generates 25-V, 100-ns wide, unipolar pulses. The preamplifier has an approximate transimpedance gain of 500 k? and 3-dB bandwidth of 10 MHz. In the first implementation of the system, one element at a time can be selected for transmit and receive and thus synthetic aperture images can be generated. In future implementations, 16 channels will be active at a given time. These channels will connect to an FPGA-based data acquisition system for real-time image reconstruction.
  • Yayın
    Beamforming and hardware design for a multichannel front-end integrated circuit for real-time 3D catheter-based ultrasonic imaging
    (SPIE-Int Soc Optical Engineering, 2006) Wygant, Ira O.; Karaman, Mustafa; Oralkan, Ömer; Khuri-Yakub, Butrus Thomas
    We are working on integrating front-end electronics with the ultrasound transducer array for real-time 3D ultrasound imaging systems. We achieve this integration by flip-chip bonding a two-dimensional transducer array to an integrated circuit (IC) that comprises the front-end electronics. The front-end IC includes preamplifiers, multiplexers, and pulsers. We recently demonstrated a catheter-based real-time ultrasound imaging system based on a 16 x 16-element capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) array. The CMUT array is flip-chip bonded to a front-end IC that includes a pulser and preamplifier for each element of the array. To simplify the back-end processing and signal routing on the IC for this initial implementation, only a single array element is active at a time (classic synthetic aperture (CSA) imaging). Compared with classic phased array imaging (CPA), where multiple elements are used on transmit and receive, CSA imaging has reduced signal-to-noise ratio and prominent grating lobes. In this work, we evaluate three array designs for the next generation front-end IC. The designs assume there are 16 receive channels and that numerous transmit pulsers are provided by the IC. The designs presented are: plus-transmit x-receive, boundary-transmit x-receive with no common elements, and full-transmit x-receive with no common elements. Each design is compared with CSA and CPA imaging. We choose to implement an IC for the full-transmit x-receive with no common elements (FT-XR-NC) design for our next-generation catheter-based imaging system.
  • Yayın
    Multiple annular ring capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer arrays for forward-looking intravascular ultrasound imaging catheters
    (American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), 2007) Güldiken, Rasim Oytun; Zahorian, Jaime S.; Balantekin, Müjdat; Karaman, Mustafa; Değertekin, Fahrettin Levent
    We investigate multiple-annular-ring CMUT array configuration for forward-looking intravascular ultrasound (FL-IVUS) imaging. This configuration has the potential for independent optimization of each ring and uses the silicon area more effectively without any particular drawback. We designed and fabricated a sample 1mm diameter dual annular ring CMUT test array which consists of 24 transmit and 32 receive elements. For imaging experiments, we designed IC chips that contain 8 transimpedance amplifiers, a multiplexer and a buffer. The real time-pulse echo experiments obtained with designed IC electronics show 26dB Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) from a 3.5 mm away aluminum reflector in oil. This paper presents our first efforts in obtaining real time imaging with designed IC chips which is one step before CMUT on CMOS implementation.