Patent ID: 7698948

Claim:
An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus comprising: a probe which transmits and receives ultrasonic waves to and from an object to be inspected; a transmission means which outputs transmission signals for driving the probe; a reception means which processes reception signals received by the probe; and an image reconstruction means which reconstructs an ultrasonic image using the reception signals outputted by the reception means, wherein: the transmission means creates and outputs the transmission signals corresponding to a composite modulation code sequence composed from two or more modulation code sequences, the reception means is provided with a demodulator which demodulates the modulation based on the composite modulation code sequence for the reception signals, the demodulator comprises a first demodulator for demodulating the modulation based on the first modulation code sequence, and a second demodulator for demodulating the modulation based on the second modulation code sequence, and the reception signals outputted by the probe are demodulated by one of the first and second demodulators, and then further demodulated by the other demodulator.