ULTRASOUND SYSTEM WITH PARALLEL PROCESSING ARCHITECTURE

摘要

An ultrasound system operating on a personal computer architecture comprising multiple processors controlled to operate in parallel to share ultrasound operations of the system. The multiple processors are controlled by software to share the operations associated with system setup, system control, scanning, data acquisition, beamforming, user interface service, signal processing, and scan conversion. The ultrasound system utilizes management software which divides operations associated with each function (such as signal processing and scan conversion) into parallel sub-operations or tasks. Each task is assigned by the operating system to a CPU. Any of the CPUs may be capable of performing any of the tasks. The CPUs operate in parallel to carry out the assigned tasks. Once all of the CPUs have completed the assigned tasks, the system may serially advance to the next ultrasound function.