| abstract |
A phased array digital ultrasound beamformer (12) for use with an ultrasound transducer array (10). The beamformer (12) includes a processing channel for each element of the transducer array (10). Each processing channel includes a digitizing circuit (20₁, 20₂, ... 20 n ) for converting the received signal to digital samples and a time multiplexed digital delay circuit (22₁, 22₂, ... 22 n ) responsive to delay coefficients for delaying the digital samples by time multiplexed delays to produce delayed, time multiplexed samples for forming two or more receive beams. The ultrasound beamformer (12) further includes a summing circuit (24) for summing the delayed, time multiplexed digital samples from each processing channel to form a stream of time multiplexed output samples that is simultaneously representative of two or more receive beams. A coefficient generator (28) supplies the delay coefficients to the time multiplexed delay circuit (22₁, 22₂, ... 22 n ) in each of the processing channels. |