Patent ID: 8641628

Claim:
A system for volumetric ultrasound imaging comprising: a transducer comprising elements biased on by a bias voltage; a bias generator coupled with the transducer, the bias generator operable to generate a bias signal establishing a first bias pattern of the elements and generate a bias signal for establishing a second bias pattern of the elements; and a beamformer coupled with the transducer, the transducer operable to, in response to the beamformer, transmit and receive ultrasound data based on the first bias pattern and transmit and receive ultrasound data based on the second bias pattern, the beamformer configured to receive beamform along a first direction of a scanned volume and synthesize, on receive, an aperture along a second direction of the scanned volume, wherein the second direction is different than the first direction and the receive beamforming is different than the synthesizing; wherein an image is generated based on a combination of the ultrasound data from the first bias pattern and the ultrasound data from the second bias pattern, the combination being from the synthesis of the aperture along the second direction.