A Pixel Pitch-Matched Ultrasound Receiver for 3-D Photoacoustic Imaging With Integrated Delta-Sigma Beamformer in 28-nm UTBB FD-SOI
[1];
- Robert-Bosch Sensortec, Palo Alto, CA (United States)
- SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
- Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)
- STMicroelectronics, Crolles (France)
- Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Rad/Molecular Imaging Program
- Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Dept. of Electrical Engineering
This study presents a pixel pitch-matched readout chip for 3-D photoacoustic (PA) imaging, featuring a dedicated signal conditioning and delta-sigma modulation integrated within a pixel area of 250 μm by 250 μm. The proof-of-concept receiver was implemented in an STMicroelectronics's 28-nm Fully Depleted Silicon On Insulator technology, and interfaces to a 4 × 4 subarray of capacitive micromachined ultrasound transducers (CMUTs). The front-end signal conditioning in each pixel employs a coarse/fine gain tuning architecture to fulfill the 90-dB dynamic range requirement of the application. The employed delta-sigma beamforming architecture obviates the need for area-consuming Nyquist ADCs and thereby enables an efficient in-pixel A/D conversion. The per-pixel switched-capacitor ΔΣ modulator leverages slewing-dominated and area-optimized inverter-based amplifiers. It occupies only 1/4th of the pixel, and its area compares favorably with state-of-the-art designs that offer the same SNR and bandwidth. The modulator's measured peak signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio is 59.9 dB for a 10-MHz input bandwidth, and it consumes 6.65 mW from a 1V supply. The overall subarray beamforming approach improves the area per channel by 7.4 times and the single-channel SNR by 8 dB compared to prior art with similar delay resolution and power dissipation. Finally, the functionality of the designed chip was evaluated within a PA imaging experiment, employing a flip-chip bonded 2-D CMUT array.
- Research Organization:
- SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States); Stanford Univ., CA (United States); Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE; National Inst. of Health (NIH) (United States); Stanford Univ. (United States); Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) (United States)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-76SF00515; NIBIB-K99EB017729
- OSTI ID:
- 1427512
- Journal Information:
- IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, Vol. 52, Issue 11; ISSN 0018-9200
- Publisher:
- IEEECopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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