A two-dimensional array probe that has a huge number of active channels

A novel 2D array ultrasound probe for volumetric imaging has been fabricated and evaluated. This 2D array probe is a random sparse array probe with 1024 channels exclusively for transmission and 1024 channels exclusively for reception. The probe includes a 2D array transducer consisting of a fully populated 64/spl times/64 array of elements with a 0.25-mm pitch in each direction and a 2.5-MHz center frequency. The internal electronic circuits module of the probe assigns 1024 transducer elements exclusively for transmission and 1024 transducer elements exclusively for reception, and sets the rest as inactive. The probe also contains preamplifiers in the receive channels and a cable assembly consisting of more than 2000 coaxial cables. In this paper, details of the design and fabrication of the subunits of this 2D array probe are presented together with the results of evaluation of a prototype of the probe.