Ultrasonic diagnostic equipment

Claim 1

An ultrasonic diagnostic equipment comprising: a plurality of ultrasonic transducers disposed in line and divided into a plurality of groups each having a predetermined number of transducers; a plurality of drive pulse generators each connected directly to the corresponding one of the ultrasonic transducers, respectively, for supplying high level pulses to the respective transducers in order to transmit ultrasonic waves from the transducers; a plurality of gate circuits connected to the drive pulse generators, respectfully, for supplying control signals to the drive pulse generators; a plurality of analogue switch circuits connected to the ultrasonic transducers, respectively, for delivering signals received from the transducers in response to reflected ultrasonic waves; a control circuit section for producing control signals to control the gating of the gate circuits and the switching operations of the analogue switch circuits, the control circuit section including a clock pulse generator for generating clock pulse signals, a plurality of delay circuits provided corresponding to the transducers of each group through which clock pulses are supplied to the gate circuits and through which analogue signals received from the transducers are passed, a first control circuit connected to the gate circuits for controlling the gating of the gate circuits, and a second control circuit connected to the delay circuits for controlling the delay times of the delay circuits, the first control circuit generating control signals for opening the same number of gate circuits as the number of the transducers of each group with the gate circuits to be opened being shifted one by one, whereby the delayed pulse signals passed through the delay circuits and having different phases are supplied through the open gate circuits to the corresponding drive pulse generators; and means for processing the signals passed through the delay circuits to obtain image data corresponding to the reflected ultrasonic waves.