TIDUFC2 April   2025

 

  1.   1
  2.   Description
  3.   Resources
  4.   Features
  5.   Applications
  6.   6
  7. 1System Description
    1. 1.1 Key System Specifications
  8. 2System Overview
    1. 2.1 Block Diagram
    2. 2.2 Design Considerations
      1. 2.2.1 High-Voltage Generator Circuit
      2. 2.2.2 Low-Voltage Switching Mode Power Supply
      3. 2.2.3 Sitara™ MCU AM2431 Reset and Power Rail Monitoring Circuit
      4. 2.2.4 Clock Generator
      5. 2.2.5 CMOS to LVDS Driver
      6. 2.2.6 Layout Guidance
    3. 2.3 Highlighted Products
      1. 2.3.1 TX7516
      2. 2.3.2 TMU9832
      3. 2.3.3 AM2431
  9. 3Hardware, Software, Testing Requirements, and Test Results
    1. 3.1 Hardware Requirements
      1. 3.1.1 TIDA-010256 PCB Overview
      2. 3.1.2 TIDA-010256 Connector Settings
    2. 3.2 Software Requirements
    3. 3.3 Test Setup
    4. 3.4 Test Results
      1. 3.4.1 High-Voltage Power Supply Output Ripple
      2. 3.4.2 Output Waveform
      3. 3.4.3 Thermal Test
  10. 4Design and Documentation Support
    1. 4.1 Design Files
      1. 4.1.1 Schematics
      2. 4.1.2 BOM
    2. 4.2 Tools and Software
    3. 4.3 Documentation Support
    4. 4.4 Support Resources
    5. 4.5 Trademarks

1 System Description

The principle of ultrasound imaging is based on transmitting a high-voltage pulse to excite the transducer and then receive an echo from the object. The amplitude of the echo signal modulates the light-intensity into an image. In modern ultrasound systems, there are from 1 to 256 transducers and this means the system needs a lot of transmitters. The B-mode imaging system has 16 to 256 transducers in modern ultrasound systems for a larger acoustic aperture, a clearer lateral resolution, and an improved signal-to-noise ratio, as well as for enhanced imaging quality. Figure 1-1 shows a simplified system block diagram.


TIDA-010256 Simplified System Block Diagram

Figure 1-1 Simplified System Block Diagram

The design employs four TMUX9832 devices, which integrate bleed resistors on the drain (Dx) pins to discharge capacitive loads, allowing for a compact interface between the transducers and the front-end main board. TX7516 is a 16-channel transmitter. The design uses two TX7516 devices to reduce the amount of wire and transmitters by approximately 75%.

To simplify the beamforming process, the system incorporates a built-in beamforming pattern generator within the transmitter device (TX7516), which controls pulse transmission through a high-performance general-purpose microcontroller (AM2431). The complex beamforming can be accomplished using only a Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) with a maximum rate of 50MHz. Additionally, the SPI of the TMUX9832 device can be controlled using the Programmable Real-time Unit (PRU) IO, which supports up to 100MHz for TMUX9832.