Medical Ultrasound Beamforming: 128-Channel Signal Chain and Data-Rate Budget
A 128-channel color ultrasound probe samples each channel with a 12-bit, 40 MS/s ADC, giving a raw data rate of about 7.7 GB/s — a level a CPU cannot absorb, let alone image in real time. The right approach is to run beamforming, envelope detection and downsampling inside the FPGA first, and only hand the compressed imaging data to the host. This article breaks the 128-channel chain into stages, budgets the data rate at each step, and explains exactly what the FPGA does in between.