A CMUT-based real-time volumetric ultrasound imaging system with row-column addressing

Creating real-time three dimensional imaging with two dimensional transducers arrays is difficult to achieve due to the large number of interconnections and processing data. One method to greatly reduce the interconnections and also processing time is by introducing the row-column addressing scheme where the top and bottom electrodes are connected by rows on one side and columns on the other. As a result, only 2×N number of connection needs to be made instead of N×N. Another important advantage of using row-column method is that the data acquisition rate for a three dimensional image can be acquired at the same rate as a two-dimensional image using phased-array method. This paper presents an imaging system that uses a row-column addressing-based capacitive micromachined ultrasound transducers array to perform real-time ultrasound imaging.