Tiago Costa, Chen Shi, Kevin Tien, Jeffrey Elloian, Filipe A. Cardoso and Kenneth L. Shepard, “An Integrated 2D Ultrasound Phased Array Transmitter in CMOS with Pixel Pitch-Matched Beamforming,” IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems, 2021 (Early Access)

Emerging non-imaging ultrasound applications, such as ultrasonic wireless power delivery to implantable devices and ultrasound neuromodulation, require wearable form factors, millisecond-range pulse durations and focal spot diameters approaching 100 m with electronic control of its three-dimensional location. None of these are compatible with typical handheld linear array ultrasound imaging probes. In this work, we present a 4 mm x 5 mm 2D ultrasound phased array transmitter with integrated piezoelectric ultrasound transducers on complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuits, featuring pixel-level pitch-matched transmit beamforming circuits which support arbitrary pulse duration. Our direct integration method enabled up to 10 MHz ultrasound arrays in a patch form-factor, leading to focal spot diameter of ~200 m, while pixel pitch-matched beamforming allowed for precise three-dimensional positioning of the ultrasound focal spot. Our device has the potential to provide a high-spatial resolution and wearable interface to both powering of highly-miniaturized implantable devices and ultrasound neuromodulation.