High-voltage pulser for ultrasound medical imaging applications

This paper presents the design and implementation of a fully integrated high-voltage (HV) front-end transducer for MEMS ultrasonic applications. Each of the front-end transducers in the array includes a HV transmitting driver and a 50MHz capacitive micro-machined ultrasound transducer (CMUT). The design adapts low voltage integrated circuit (IC) design techniques to create integrated high voltage interfaces. Effective methods to implement high voltage interfaces to integrated CMOS/DMOS circuits are presented. Using a 0.18μm CMOS/DMOS process, simulation results of this interface IC show that can generated a 30V high voltage pulse from a 1.8V input triggering signal to drive a 50MHz MEMS ultrasound transducer with the largest 44pF capacitive load.