Ultrasonic Imaging Customer Case The customer is digitizing signals returned from an ultrasonic transducer used in the study of cardiac phenomena. At the moment, a 5 MHz transducer is being used, but the customer wants to upgrade to a 10 MHz transducer in the near future. This transducer will give him better spacial resolution. The customer needs one channel of very fast (100 MSPS), preferably 12-bit A/D conversion which is controlled by an external trigger signal. Bandwidth of the analog front-end of the A/D card or system must be very flat up to 15 or 20 MHz. The application [...]

Ultrasound Tissue Imaging Customer Case This customer is building a system to be used as a test station for examining human tissue for disease. Diseased organs differ from healthy organs in ways that can be measured via the echoes of ultrasound transmissions which are passed through the tissues. The customer's system will build a 3D image of the tissue under examination. In order to obtain a clear ultrasound image of the object being studied, the successive data captures have to be aligned to eliminate a distorted image. Jitter which would result from an asynchronous triggering is not acceptable. The [...]

Ultrasonic Medical Imaging System Customer Case A customer wants to construct an ultrasonic medical imaging system based on a transducer array. A central ultrasonic generation transducer generates a burst of ultrasonic energy which travels towards a tissue specimen. Echoes reflected off the tissue specimen are simultaneously detected by an array of 48 ultrasonic receiver transducers arranged in a dish-like pattern. The customer must simultaneously digitize all 48 signals and download them to PC RAM as quickly as possible. The customer requires 8 bit vertical resolution and would like to sample at 40 MS/s, but 20 MS/s would be acceptable. [...]

Laser Scanning Microscope Interface Customer Case This customer needs to interface a scanning laser microscope to their PC so that image data can be acquired and stored. Data is received from the laser microscope via an optical sensor at 1300 line scans per image. Each scan has an 8 ms duration, but 2/3 of that time is scan time and 1/3 is flyback time (dead time). The customer has determined that a 1 us sample width (or faster) would be adequate. There is also a price vs. performance issue - the customer has a tight budget and wants the [...]

Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Imaging (EPRI) Measuring of Tumor Oxygen Levels Customer Case The customer is improving their Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Imaging (EPRI) system that is used for the diagnosis of tumors. Using this non-invasive method, the concentration of oxygen in living tissues can be determined without the need for biopsies. Tumors that have little or no oxygen content (i.e. hypoxia) also have increased resistance to radio-frequency radiation, making it less effective as a choice for cancer treatment. Identifying those patients with hypoxic tumors allow alternative treatments to be used instead. The requirement is to capture the returned RF signals [...]

Transmission Electron Microscopy for Imaging of Biological Molecules Customer Case The customer is improving their customized Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) that is optimized for imaging unstained biological molecules with minimal radiation damage. Diffraction-limited resolution of 0.25 nm is routinely obtained with a cold field-emission electron-gun operating at 40 keV. The sample is maintained at about 123 K (i.e. -150°C), both to eliminate contamination and to reduce mass-loss. The scan raster is 512 x 512 points with a dwell time of 30 microseconds per pixel (over 8.5 seconds per raster-scan). For most mass measurements, the pixels are separated by 1 [...]

Treadmill Power Glitch Monitoring Customer Case A customer develops gym equipment such as treadmills. The requirement is for an inexpensive way to monitor voltage signals for long periods of time. The treadmills are controlled by microprocessors that drive the LED displays. The customer has observed that some units intermittently fail during testing, a condition known as a "glitch" or a "brown-out". A glitch can have many causes, one of which is a weak power supply. The customer needs to capture certain key signals when a glitch occurs. At that stage, based on the captured data, it can be determined [...]