Patent ID: 8161817

Claim:
An ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system for imaging a volumetric region with a sequence of translated receive apertures comprising: an array of transducer elements, local groups of which comprise patches of elements having a width dimension; a multi-channel beamformer producing a beamformed output signal; and a microbeamformer including a plurality of delay lines, each delay line having an input coupled to an array element and an output producing a delayed signal which may be directed to channel of the multi-channel beamformer; and a source of control signals, coupled to the microbeamformer, which act to control the direction of delay line outputs to channels of the multi-channel beamformer, wherein a receive aperture formed by the elements of multiple patches may be stepped from one aperture location of the transducer array for one beam to another aperture location of the transducer array for another beam in a step increment which is less than the width of a patch of elements.