Parallel hardware architecture for CCD-mosaic digital mammography

The development of an efficient parallel hardware architecture suitable for CCD-mosaic digital mammography has been accomplished. This paper presents this architecture including both the analog and digital portions of the imaging hardware. A two dimensional array of CCD sensors are used to capture the mammographic image synchronously and simultaneously. Each CCD's analog signal is converted to a 12 bits/pixel digital value through an array of high speed analog-to-digital converters. A parallel array of mesh connected TMS320C40 DSP processors then takes in the digital image data simultaneously. The DSP's are used to precisely register the mosaic of individual images to form the final large format digital mammogram. Also, they are used to control CCD characteristics and parallel data transport to the viewing workstation. One master DSP is located on the workstation's PCI bus which controls the parallel DSP array and collects compressed image data through a 60MB/s port. Since all computations are performed in parallel using local memory on each DSP, the overall acquisition, image registration, and transmission to display of the final mammogram is performed in less than 30 seconds. This allows the physician to perform a preliminary observation of the patient's mammogram.