Patent ID: 8628474

Claim:
A method of ultrasound imaging comprising: using a hand-held probe housing having a transducer array with at least 128 transducer elements, the probe housing being connected with a cable to a hand-held portable computer device, the hand-held portable computer device having a display that displays ultrasound images, a processor that performs scan conversion, a memory for storing image data and a battery, the probe housing, cable and computer device having a weight not exceeding ten pounds; selecting at least one imaging mode from a plurality of imaging modes that are selectable by a user with the hand-held portable computer device, the plurality of imaging modes including at least a B-mode and an M-mode; receiving ultrasound signals with the transducer array from a region of interest within a patient and generating a continuous time input signal; sampling the continuous time input signal and generating discrete signals; electronically using stored delay values to set the delay settings of an integrated circuit beamformer device; delaying the discrete signals with the integrated circuit beamformer device; generating an electronic representation of the region of interest with the delayed discrete signals; processing the electronic representation to form an image based on at least one of the selectable imaging modes; and displaying the image with the display of the hand-held-portable computer device.