Patent ID: 8348849

Claim:
A method of medical ultrasound imaging system comprising: sparsely actuating a plurality of 2D transducer subarrays to generate a plurality of scan lines at a plurality of different scan angles for each transmit pulse, each two dimensional (2D) array of transducer elements being positioned in a probe housing, the array of transducer elements having a plurality of 2D transducer sub-arrays; summing a plurality of delayed signals with a summing device within the probe housing, the summing device receiving signals from a first beamformer device in the probe housing, the first beamformer device having a plurality of sub-array beamformer elements that receive signals from the plurality of 2D transducer sub-arrays, each of the plurality of 2D transducer sub-arrays being connected to one of a plurality of multiplexer elements; and performing a second beamforming operation with a second beamformer device in a second housing, the second beamformer being in communication with the probe housing to receive summed beamformed data from the first beamformer device, the second housing including a processing system and a display.