A 16-channel 38.6 mW/ch Fully Integrated Analog Front-end for Handheld Ultrasound Imaging

We present a fully integrated low power 16-channel Analog Front-End (AFE) for handheld Ultrasound imaging applications. Each channel consists of a Low Noise Amplifier (LNA), a Time Gain Compensation (TGC) amplifier, an anti-aliasing filter (AAF) and a dual mode Delta-Sigma Modulator (Delta Sigma M) with a Cascaded Integrated Comb (CIC) filter & Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filter combination serving as decimating filter. Every successive pair of channels is multiplexed to a Serializer whose output feeds an LVDS transmitter. Gm-C calibration circuits for PVT-compensation are implemented to supply the sensitive AAF & Delta Sigma M blocks. The measured power consumption per channel is 38.6mW represents about 3x lower consumption compared to reported works. Different low power techniques are proposed for further power reduction of the power-budget dominant blocks. The chip occupies 4.1mm x 4.1mm of die size.