Patent ID: 8157738

Claim:
In an ultrasound imaging system including an array of ultrasound transducer elements that outputs a plurality of analog ultrasound signals during a sampling window, a method comprising: digitally sampling the plurality of analog ultrasound signals using analog to digital converters to produce a plurality of sequences of signal samples, each sequence of signal samples representing the analog ultrasound signal output by a corresponding transducer element during the sampling window; compressing the plurality of sequences of signal samples to form a plurality of corresponding sequences of compressed samples, including compressing a particular sequence of signal samples in the plurality of sequences of signal samples independently from signal samples representing analog ultrasound signals output from other transducer elements during said sampling window to form a corresponding sequence of compressed samples, wherein the corresponding sequence includes fewer bits than the particular sequence; and transferring the plurality of corresponding sequences of compressed samples across a data transfer interface to a signal processor.