Microsystems for Medical Ultrasound Video Cameras

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It is predicted that medical imaging by ultrasound will more than double in use over the next 5 to 10 years from more than one billion examination each year to almost 3 billion examinations in 2015 - 2020. Three major development trends point in this dir ection. Medical imaging for diagnosis is coming into common use in China and India. Ultrasound imaging is developing into a daily used tool for the general physician in private practice in the western part of the world. And finally, technology development and miniaturization enable development of small, specialized ultrasound devices for use in e.g. medical procedures. For this to take place two presuppositions must materialize. The cost of ultrasound equipment must be lower, and the use of it must be fa ultless and not lead to wrong diagnostic decisions by less experienced new users. These requirements are in a way contradictory. Better diagnostic capability is obtained by better image quality. The solution to this paradox will be in novel microsystem technologies, that will permit implementation of a fully integrated ultrasound camera with more than ten thousand independent channels on a complex microchip assembly. In volume quantities the manufacturing cost may become an order of magnitude below curr ently available technology. For ultrasound imaging in medicine this will represent a technical paradigm. In this project we will address these challenges by developing basic microsystem technology that will bring ultrasound imaging into the next level of performance in medical diagnosis. The project will be carried out in close cooperation with SINTEF MiNaLab in Oslo, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), and Stanford Univ. in the US for fabrication of microsystem prototypes.