TY - JOUR
T1 - A wideband high-voltage power amplifier post-linearizer for medical ultrasound transducers
AU - Choi, Hojong
AU - Yoon, Changhan
AU - Yeom, Jung Yeol
N1 - Funding Information:
This work has been supported by National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2016M2B2 A9A02945226) and by the MSIP (Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning), Korea, under the ITRC (Information Technology Research Center) support program (IITP-2016-R2718-16-0015) supervised by the IITP (National It Industry Promotion Agency).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 by the authors.
PY - 2017/4/4
Y1 - 2017/4/4
N2 - The medical ultrasound transducer is a principal component in ultrasound systems, as it significantly influences system performance. The high-voltage power amplifier (HVPA) is the key ultrasound transmitter component and interfaces with the medical ultrasound transducer. Therefore, the performance of the HVPA critically affects the echo signal quality of the ultrasound transducer. As they are inherently non-linear devices, harmonic distortion of echo signals generated by the ultrasound transducers would critically deteriorate the echo signal quality in ultrasound systems. The primary aim of this research is to integrate a novel post-linearizer into the HVPA to suppress harmonic distortion in medical ultrasound transducers. Moreover, this study is based on the assumption that linearizing the HVPA could reduce the harmonic distortion components of the echo signals. The developed HVPA with post-linearizer was tested in an ultrasound microscopy system in order to demonstrate the harmonic suppression capability on the echo signal generated by the ultrasound transducer. When 10 MHz, 5-cycle, 26 dBm input power was sent to the HVPA with and without the post-linearizer circuits, the measured second-, third-, fourth- and fifth- harmonic distortions of a 10 MHz transducer with the post-linearizer (-13.11 dB, -10.81 dB, -16.33 dB, and -22.78 dB) were suppressed to a greater degree than those of the same transducer without the post-linearizer (-4.58 dB, -8.87 dB, -10.51 dB, and -15.31 dB).. Therefore, we conclude that the addition of the post-linearizer to the HVPA is a potentially useful electronic technique for improving echo signal quality in medical ultrasound transducers.
AB - The medical ultrasound transducer is a principal component in ultrasound systems, as it significantly influences system performance. The high-voltage power amplifier (HVPA) is the key ultrasound transmitter component and interfaces with the medical ultrasound transducer. Therefore, the performance of the HVPA critically affects the echo signal quality of the ultrasound transducer. As they are inherently non-linear devices, harmonic distortion of echo signals generated by the ultrasound transducers would critically deteriorate the echo signal quality in ultrasound systems. The primary aim of this research is to integrate a novel post-linearizer into the HVPA to suppress harmonic distortion in medical ultrasound transducers. Moreover, this study is based on the assumption that linearizing the HVPA could reduce the harmonic distortion components of the echo signals. The developed HVPA with post-linearizer was tested in an ultrasound microscopy system in order to demonstrate the harmonic suppression capability on the echo signal generated by the ultrasound transducer. When 10 MHz, 5-cycle, 26 dBm input power was sent to the HVPA with and without the post-linearizer circuits, the measured second-, third-, fourth- and fifth- harmonic distortions of a 10 MHz transducer with the post-linearizer (-13.11 dB, -10.81 dB, -16.33 dB, and -22.78 dB) were suppressed to a greater degree than those of the same transducer without the post-linearizer (-4.58 dB, -8.87 dB, -10.51 dB, and -15.31 dB).. Therefore, we conclude that the addition of the post-linearizer to the HVPA is a potentially useful electronic technique for improving echo signal quality in medical ultrasound transducers.
KW - High-voltage power amplifier
KW - Medical ultrasound transducer
KW - Post-linearizer
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85017399828&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/app7040354
DO - 10.3390/app7040354
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85017399828
VL - 7
JO - Applied Sciences (Switzerland)
JF - Applied Sciences (Switzerland)
SN - 2076-3417
IS - 4
M1 - 354
ER -