Patent ID: 7874991

Claim:
A medical ultrasound imaging system comprising: a two dimensional (2D) array of transducer elements in a probe housing, the array of transducer elements having a plurality of 2D transducer sub-arrays; 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; a multiplexer device in the probe housing, the multiplexer device having a plurality of multiplexer elements, each of the plurality of multiplexer elements being connected to one of the sub-array beamformer elements and such that each of the plurality of 2D transducer sub-arrays are each connected to one of the plurality of multiplexer elements; a summing device for summing of a plurality of delayed signals within the probe housing; a controller to sparsely actuate the plurality of 2D transducer subarrays to generate a plurality of scan lines at a plurality of different scan angles for each transmit pulse; and 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 an image processor and a display.