Fully-Addressable Sensor Array for Acoustic Imaging Systems

摘要

An acoustic imaging system can contain a plurality of individual acoustic elements that each contain an acoustic transducer, drive circuitry, and low voltage sense and/or read circuitry. In many embodiments both the drive circuitry and the read circuitry can be independently addressable. For example, if the individual acoustic elements are arranged into rows and columns, each acoustic element can include row/column drive circuit enable switches and row/column read circuit enable switches.

主权项

1. A fingerprint imaging system comprising:
a drive voltage node; a sense voltage node; a plurality of acoustic elements electrically arranged into a plurality of rows and a plurality of columns, each acoustic element comprising:
an acoustic transducer comprising:
a drive mode in which the acoustic transducer produces an acoustic pulse in response to a first electronic signal; anda sense mode in which the acoustic transducer produces a second electronic signal in response to receiving an acoustic pulse;a first pair of switches configured to couple the acoustic transducer in the drive mode to the drive voltage node through a row selected from the plurality of rows and a column selected from the plurality of columns; anda second pair of switches configured to couple the acoustic transducer in the sense mode to the sense voltage node through the selected row the selected column; an addressing controller configured to selectively enable the first pair or the second pair of switches associated with an acoustic element selected from the plurality of acoustic elements.