A 180-V_pp Integrated Linear Amplifier for Ultrasonic Imaging Applications in a High-Voltage CMOS SOI Technology

Abstract

This brief presents a monolithically integrated fully differential linear HV amplifier as the driver of an ultrasonic transducer. The linear amplifier is capable of transmitting HV arbitrary signals with a very low harmonic distortion, which is suitable for tissue harmonic imaging and other ultrasonic modes for enhanced imaging quality. The amplifier is designed and implemented using the 0.7-μm CMOS silicon-on-insulator process with 120-V devices. The amplifier, when driving a load of 300 pF in parallel with 100 Ω, is capable of transmitting a sine-wave signal with a frequency of up to 4.4 MHz, a maximum signal swing of 180 Vpp, and a second-order harmonic distortion (HD2) of −56 dBc but only dissipating an average power of 62 mW with a 0.1% duty cycle.

Pulsing and Detection Strategies for Contrast-Enhanced Ultrasound: A Narrative Review

“…The excitation circuitry of commercial ultrasound systems rely on either square wave pulsers or linear amplifiers [154]. Linear amplifiers can output arbitrary waveforms without introducing harmonic distortion and are thus advantageous for CEUS [155], [156], [157]. However, most commercial systems use square wave pulsers because they are simple, inexpensive, compact, and power efficient [154], [158].…”

Design of a CMOS Analog Front-End for Wearable A-Mode Ultrasound Hand Gesture Recognition

“…Both differential and single-ended voltage amplifiers have been designed for ultrasound applications. Differential amplifiers have the benefits of lower harmonic distortion and power supply rejection and can be more suited for ultrasound applications that demand low harmonic distortion such as tissue harmonic imaging [21]. However, in this design, a single-ended implementation has been chosen because the simulation results show that the noise and power performance of the single-ended amplifier is acceptable.…”

Integrated Circuits for Medical Ultrasound Applications: Imaging and Beyond

“…Note that, low second-order harmonic distortion (HD2) from the transmitter is especially valuable as it allows for tissue harmonic imaging (THI), an alternative ultrasound imaging method accidentally invented in 1997 with the benefits of reduced reverberation noise, improved border delineation and increased contrast resolution 2 [56]. Typically, THI requires the transmitted signal to have less than −40 dB HD2 [53]. The difficulty in designing the linear amplifier lies in simultaneously achieving large signal swing, low HD2 and wide bandwidth with high-voltage transistors which are inherently slow [52].…”

“…It is usually more practical to have a low-voltage supply stage that uses standard MOSFETs followed by a separate high-voltage supply stage that uses highvoltage transistors like double-diffused MOS (DMOS). The lowvoltage gain stage can be realised as a two-stage Miller op-amp (voltage amplifier) [53], a transconductance amplifier [51] or a current amplifier [54]. By way of example, the transconductance amplifier in [51] Unlike the linear amplifiers in [51], [53] which use voltage feedback, the low-voltage gain stage in [54] is a current amplifier because the overall linear amplifier uses current feedback.…”

“…The lowvoltage gain stage can be realised as a two-stage Miller op-amp (voltage amplifier) [53], a transconductance amplifier [51] or a current amplifier [54]. By way of example, the transconductance amplifier in [51] Unlike the linear amplifiers in [51], [53] which use voltage feedback, the low-voltage gain stage in [54] is a current amplifier because the overall linear amplifier uses current feedback. The advantage of using current feedback is that the amplifier is not restricted by a constant gain-bandwidth unlike voltage feedback amplifiers.…”