Patent ID: 7798967

Claim:
An ultrasound diagnosis apparatus, comprising: an array transducer composed of a plurality of transducer elements for forming an ultrasonic beam which is to be scanned two-dimensionally; a switching section which is connected to the array transducer, the switching section defining a plurality of sub arrays with respect to the array transducer and defining a plurality of groups, each being composed of one or a plurality of transducer elements, with respect to each sub array; a transmitter section which is connected to the array transducer via the switching section, for generating a group transmission signal for each group; and a receiver section which is connected to the array transducer via the switching section, for processing a reception signal of each group which is output from the switching section, wherein: the switching section defines a grouping pattern individually for each sub array on the basis of a position of each sub array in the array transducer, a beam address, and a depth of focal point; and the switching section dynamically changes the grouping pattern defined for each sub array so as to equalize acoustic distances between the plurality of transducer elements forming each group and the focal point when scanning the ultrasonic beam.