ADI intros ultrasound receivers

BANGALORE, INDIA: As hospitals, medical clinics, and mobile emergency units increasingly rely on high-performance and portable ultrasound equipment for routine, preventative, and acute medical care, ultrasound equipment designers must meet new and varied demands for a better balance between image quality and power efficiency.

Addressing this need, the leading provider of data conversion technology and longtime collaborator to the medical imaging industry, Analog Devices Inc., is announcing two new products, both eight-channel (octal) ultrasound receivers. The AD9272 features the industry’s lowest terminated noise for high- and mid-end cart-based ultrasound equipment that need superior image quality, and the AD9273 is the most power-efficient device in its class for addressing the requirements of portable ultrasound systems.

These devices follow the award-winning AD9271, which when unveiled in April 2007, was the first device to integrate a complete octal ultrasound receiver on a single chip, and is used today in ultrasound equipment throughout the world.  The AD927x offerings replace previous discrete solutions with a single integrated circuit that combines eight channels, each comprising a low-noise amplifer (LNA), a variable-gain amplifer (VGA), an anti-aliasing filter (AAF) and a 12-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC).

“Analog Devices fully understands the challenges facing designers of next-generation high-performance and portable ultrasound systems, including the need to balance image quality and diagnostic capabilities with power requirements,” said Pat O’Doherty, healthcare segment director, Analog Devices. "The AD927x family offers a complete, optimized, flexible receiver solution for both cart-based and battery-powered designs."

The AD9272 and AD9273 are sampling now. Both products come in a 100-lead TQFP (thin quad flat package) and are priced at $40 per unit in 1,000-unit quantities.