Patent ID: 8795180

Claim:
In an ultrasound imaging system including an array of N ultrasound transducer elements that outputs N analog ultrasound signals during a sampling window, a method comprising: digitally sampling the N analog ultrasound signals in parallel using N analog to digital converters (ADCs) to produce N sequences of signal samples during the sampling window, each ADC sampling a corresponding analog ultrasound signal output by a corresponding transducer element to form a corresponding sequence of signal samples, each signal sample represented by a number of bits per sample; multiplexing the N sequences of signal samples to M channels of multiplexed signal samples where M is less than N by mapping the bits of the N signal samples for each sample period to M subsets of bits, where each subset of bits is provided to a corresponding on of the M channels; and transferring the M channels of multiplexed signal samples over M data ports across a data transfer interface to a signal processor.