Japanese Journal of Applied Physics 56, 07JF21 (2017) REGULAR PAPER

https://doi.org/10.7567/JJAP.56.07JF21

Multifunctional pulse generator for high-intensity focused ultrasound system

Satoshi Tamano1,3, Shin Yoshizawa1, and Shin-Ichiro Umemura2
1
Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8579, Japan
2
Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8579, Japan
3
Healthcare Business Unit, Hitachi, Ltd., Kokubunji, Tokyo 185-0014, Japan

Received November 26, 2016; revised April 11, 2017; accepted April 16, 2017; published online June 21, 2017

High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) can achieve high spatial resolution for the treatment of diseases. A major technical challenge in
implementing a HIFU therapeutic system is to generate high-voltage high-current signals for effectively exciting a multichannel HIFU transducer at
high efficiencies. In this paper, we present the development of a multifunctional multichannel generator/driver. The generator can produce a long
burst as well as an extremely high-voltage short pulse of pseudosinusoidal waves (trigger HIFU) and second-harmonic superimposed waves for
HIFU transmission. The transmission timing, waveform, and frequency can be controlled using a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) via a
universal serial bus (USB) microcontroller. The hardware is implemented in a compact printed circuit board. The test results of trigger HIFU reveal
that the power consumption and the temperature rise of metal–oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors were reduced by 19.9% and 38.2 °C,
respectively, from the previous design. The highly flexible performance of the novel generator/driver is demonstrated in the generation of second-
harmonic superimposed waves, which is useful for cavitation-enhanced HIFU treatment, although the previous design exhibited difficulty in
generating it. © 2017 The Japan Society of Applied Physics

A highly negative acoustic pressure is expected to be

1. Introduction
Since the 1950s, therapeutic ultrasound has been applied to
the treatment of various diseases. The rapid technological
progress over the last two decades has extended the clinical
applications of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU)
from benign prostatic hyperplasia1) and uterine fibrosis2) to
malignant tumors. Currently, HIFU treatment is practiced as
a method to thermally ablate solid tumors, such as those of
prostate cancer,3) liver cancer,4) bone metastases,5) breast
cancer,6) brain tumor,7) and pancreatic cancer.8)
Ultrasonic therapies9) can be categorized into those
inducing thermal or nonthermal effects on the living body
upon ultrasonic exposure. Ultrasonic energy is converted to
heat upon its in biological tissue, and the tissue can be
irreversibly changed following a sufficient increase in its
temperature. On the other hand, shock wave lithotripsy,
histotripsy, fracture treatment, and sonodynamic therapy are
based on the nonthermal effects of ultrasound.
A long treatment time is a practical problem of HIFU
treatment. When using a typical equipment for the HIFU
treatment of prostate cancer, a median operating time of
142 min (range, 35–390 min), which includes the cooling
time between consecutive HIFU exposures, is required for
treating a median prostate volume of 21.9 cm3 (range, 4.6–
68.8 cm3).1) A novel HIFU treatment technique is required for
coagulating a larger volume in a shorter time.
Acoustically driven microbubbles can accelerate ultrasonic
heating. The trigger HIFU method10,11) was proposed for
utilizing them. By using this method, one can generate
cavitation microbubbles selectively in a focal region using a
short ultrasonic pulse at an extremely high amplitude. The
generated microbubbles can enhance the heating effect of a
burst of ultrasonic waves at a moderately high amplitude,
immediately following the pulse. A significant reduction in
treatment time was thereby achieved.
Cavitation microbubbles are also be used in therapeutic
methods for eroding calculi and soft tissue, known as
lithotripsy and histotripsy, respectively. Furthermore, they
can induce sonochemical reactions, which can be utilized for
therapeutic purposes in the form of sonodynamic therapy.12)
07JF21-1
effective for inducing cavitation. An asymmetric pressure
waveform with either its negative or positive peak emphasized
can be produced by superimposing a second-harmonic wave
onto a fundamental wave. Such second-harmonic super-
imposed waves were proven to be useful for not only gen-
erating scattered cavitation microbubbles but also promoting
or inhibiting their evolution into a large cavitation cloud.13)
A major technical challenge in implementing a HIFU
therapeutic system is to generate high-voltage high-current
signals for the effective excitation of a multichannel HIFU
transducer at a high efficiency. High efficiency is particularly
important for reducing the volume of the entire circuit driving
a large number of transducer elements to an acceptable level
because heat generation functions against the reduction in
volume. As the conventional class A amplifier design does
not agree with this requirement, a number of class D
amplifier designs have been proposed.
Umemura and Cain14) developed a unipolar power trans-
mission circuit using FETs for driving a 32-element HIFU
transducer. The maximum transmission voltage was +40 V.
In this transmission circuit, by connecting an inductor in
series with the output of the FETs, and further connecting an
adjustable capacitor parallel to the transducer, a narrow-band
transmission waveform was generated.
Furthermore, Brown and Lockwood15) developed a uni-
polar ultrasonic wave transmission circuit using FETs. The
maximum transmission voltage was −350 V, the transmitting
frequency was approximately 2 MHz, and a single negative
pulse was generated with a duration of 500 ns. However, its
application to HIFU with longer exposure durations was not
considered.
Xu et al.16) proposed a high-frequency (60 MHz or more)
transmission circuit with a bipolar power supply, a trans-
former, and FETs. The transmission of a single pulse at
35 MHz and 160 V peak to peak (Vpp) was possible.
However, when the transmission wave was extended to
seven wavelengths, the maximum transmission voltage
decreased to 75 Vpp.
Lewis and Olbricht17,18) developed a HIFU transmission
circuit for a single transducer with using multiple of parallel-
© 2017 The Japan Society of Applied Physics
Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 56, 07JF21 (2017)
Control board EEP
ROM
From/to PC
USB Control
μPC FPGA
X-tal
Fig. 1. Block diagram of multifunctional pulse generator=driver for HIFU system.
connected N-channel=P-channel integrated FETs. Their aim
was to increase transmission efficiency using FETs with
lower on-resistance than using single FET and a bipolar
HIFU transmission circuit.
Moro and coworkers19–21) proposed a high-voltage stair-
case drive circuit for HIFU transmission. For this purpose,
four staircase voltage levels and metal–oxide semiconductor
field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) were used. The reduction
of odd harmonic transmission components of the pseudosi-
nusoidal waveform was achieved. However, the device
overheating problem with long exposure duration remained.
This problem was solved by Tamano et al.22) using both N-
and P-channel MOSFETs for each intermediate voltage level.
Seip et al.23) proposed a HIFU transmission circuit with
digital pulse-width-modulation (PWM) control class D
amplifiers, which can adjust transmission amplitude. How-
ever, in order to reduce high-order harmonics, a fifth-order
low-pass filter is used. Moreover, we required a transformer
for impedance matching. For this reason, in the case of
multichannel integration, a large-scale circuit configuration is
required.
In this paper, we report the development of a novel
multifunctional, reconfigurable generator=driver system
using a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and high-
voltage MOSFETs. The system can produce pseudosinusoi-
dal waves, trigger HIFU mode ultrasonic waves, and second-
harmonic superimposed waves.
2. Materials and methods
2.1 System description
In Fig. 1, a block diagram of the proposed generator=driver
system is illustrated. The generator circuit is configured to
transmit pseudosinusoidal waves, trigger HIFU waves, or
second-harmonic superimposed waves.
2.1.1 Transmission control circuit. The generator unit
is interfaced with a personal computer (PC) and receives
commands, waveform data, and focusing delay data through a
high-speed USB 2.0 microcontroller (Cypress CY7C68013A-
128AXC24)). The control FPGA (Intel 5CEBA7F31C825))
stores the instruction information from the PC in an internal
register, transmits the data of the transmission waveform and
focuses to the transmission FPGA. For data communication
between the control FPGA and the transmission FPGA,
information is transferred using a dedicated local bus.
Ultrasonic waves are transmitted from 32 channels by one
transmission board. For a HIFU transducer consisting of 128
elements, four transmission boards are required. The control
board generates actual ultrasonic wave sequences and arbi-
S. Tamano et al.
EEP Transmission boards
ROM
To
MOSFET N Channel
Transducers
TX Driver MOSFET
FPGA MOSFET P Channel
Driver MOSFET
7 levels
32 channels
trates the transmission board control bus as well as the func-
tions described previously. The dimensions of the printed-
circuit board (PCB) are 382 mm wide and 308 mm high.
2.1.2 Transmission circuit. The transmission board in-
cludes a transmission FPGA for generating a timing signal
for ultrasonic transmission based on a command transmitted
from the control FPGA, RAMs that store transmission focus
data, N- and P-channel MOSFETs that generate ultrasonic
transmission signals, and MOSFET drivers. The dimensions
of the PCB are the same as those of the transmission control
circuit.
2.1.3 Transmission FPGA. In the circuit design described
in Sect. 2.1.7, it is essential to output 12 MOSFET driver
signals per channel. To control 16 channels per transmission
FPGA, it is essential to use a FPGA with a large number
of pin configurations; not only MOSFET driver signals but
also communicates with the memory that stores the focus
data and with the control FPGA. On the basis of these
requirements, we selected 5CEBA7F31C8 (Intel) as the
transmission FPGA. This FPGA has 5640 logical resources
composed of a combination circuits, sequential circuits, and
156 DSP blocks. Furthermore, as it can use 480 pins as an
input=output terminal, it is the most suitable device for this
study. As this device uses a Taiwan semiconductor
manufacturing company’s (TMSC) 28 nm process, low-
power consumption operation is possible even for large-
scale integration.
2.1.4 Transmission focusing RAM. Transmission focus-
ing RAM stores transmission focus data generated using an
external PC. For setting 16,384 focus points, CY7C137226)
(Cypress) was selected.
2.1.5 MOSFET driver. In general, the FPGA single-ended
external output is 2.5 V CMOS level. On the other hand, a
MOSFET gate requires a threshold voltage (Vgs(th)), which is
generally higher than 5.0 V, and a high peak current for
proper switching operation. Therefore, the MOSFET driver is
a level shift amplifier that converts a low-voltage low-current
signal from the FPGA to a MOSFET gate signal. For the
transmission board of this study, 384 MOSFET drivers are
required per board. To mount the drivers in a small area,
MD182027) (Microchip) with four-channel MOSFET drivers
per IC in a 3 mm square was selected. It has a rise and falls
time of 6.0 ns to drive the MOSFETs at a high speed. Table I
shows representative specifications of the MOSFET drivers.
2.1.6 High-voltage MOSFET. In the trigger HIFU mode, a
short pulse at an extremely high amplitude is essential for
generating cavitation in living bodies. In a previous study,22)
we examined the use of SiHFR9310-GE328) (Vishay) as a
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Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 56, 07JF21 (2017) S. Tamano et al.

Table I. MOSFET driver specifications. Table II. MOSFET specifications.

Manufacturer Microchip Type P N
Product name MD1820 Manufacturer On Semiconductor On Semiconductor
Peak output sink current Isink (A) 2 Product name FQD3P50 FDD5N50NZ
Peak output source current Isource (A) 2 Drain-to-source voltage Vds (V) −500 500
Propagation delay tP (ns) 6.5 Continuous drain current Id (A) −2.1 4
Output risetime tr (ns) 7 Static drain-to-source
3.9 1.4
Output fall time tf (ns) 7 on-resistance Rds(on) (Ω)
Propagation delay matching Δtdm (ns) ±2.0 Total gate charge Qg (nC) 18 9
Peak diode recovery
−4.5 10
dV=dt (V=ns)
Repetitive avalanche
5 6.2
energy EAR (mJ)
P-channel MOSFET that actually generates ultrasound
Turn off fall time tf (ns) 45 21
transmission waveforms. As the total gate charge (Qg) of
SiHFR9310-GE3 is as small as 13 nC, the heat generation of
the MOSFET could be suppressed. However, the maximum
drain–source breakdown voltage (BVdss) is limited to shows the representative specifications of the MOSFETs used
−400 V. In the trigger HIFU mode, an ultrasonic pulse in this study.
should be irradiated at 400 Vpp. Furthermore, the transient 2.1.7 Transmission circuit schematics. In a previous
voltage may exceed 400 Vpp. Therefore, in this study, study,22) we proposed the use of a pair of P- and N-channel
FQD3P5029) (On Semiconductor) with a BVdss of −500 V MOSFETs for the intermediate power supply voltage trans-
was used to reduce the risk of device damage. As Qg is mission circuit of the staircase drive circuit using multiple
increased from 13 to 18 nC, the temperature of the device power supplies, as shown in Fig. 2(a). In particular, the circuit
will increase. It was used in combination with an N-channel configuration of positive and negative two-stage power
MOSFET, FDD5N50NZ30) (On Semiconductor). Table II supplies has been described in detail. We have discussed that

(a) (b)

HV2 > HV1>GND

Fig. 2. Transmission circuit diagram: (a) previous design of HIFU transmission circuit and (b) proposed HIFU transmission circuit. Compared with the
circuit diagram in (a), that in (b) has additional transmission circuits accompanying one intermediate power supply level and ground level. On the other hand,
the highest power supply level N-channel MOSFET, series diode, and the lowest power supply level P-channel MOSFET, series diode were removed from the
previous transmission circuit.

07JF21-3 © 2017 The Japan Society of Applied Physics

Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 56, 07JF21 (2017)
Fig. 3. (Color online) Measurement results of transducer electrical
properties. The center frequencies of the transducer were 1.1 and 2.1 MHz.
The blue line shows impedance and the red line shows the phase.
it is possible to generate the desired staircase waveform
without depending on the imaginary part of load impedance.
That is, in a conventional class D amplifier system, an
impedance matching circuit23,31) is required according to the
load characteristics; however, in the circuit in our previous
study, the impedance matching circuit is not required. Even if
reflections of an electric signal occur owing to the impedance
mismatch, the excessive electric charge should be absorbed
by the power supply capacitor immediately and reused later.
Therefore, it is not necessary to consider signal deterioration
due to electric signal reflection. Furthermore, in the previous
study, we examined the relationship between the number of
staircase steps and power consumption. As a result, it was
confirmed by simulation that the power consumption becomes
minimum when the positive and negative power supply
voltage levels are three to four steps.
On the basis of the results of these studies and the
preliminary consideration of an actual circuit scale size, a
seven-stage staircase, with three positive and negative power
supply voltages and the ground level, was selected for this
study. The circuit should exhibit flexibility in driving not
only pseudosinusoidal waveforms of the trigger pulse and
heating burst in the trigger HIFU mode but also second-
harmonic superimposed waveforms. A diagram of the newly
proposed circuit is shown in Fig. 2(b).
2.2 HIFU transducer
The prototype transmission circuit was tested and evaluated
using a prototype dual frequency transducer at 1 and
2 MHz.32) It consists of seven electrically independent square
elements with a width and a height of approximately 8.8 mm,
and a resulting area of 77.4 mm2. The electrical properties of
the central element are shown in Fig. 3. It shows that the
impedance decreases and the phase approaches zero near
both 1 and 2 MHz. This indicates that the ultrasonic waves
can be efficiently transmitted at these frequencies. This
transducer element was used for evaluating the circuit
performance on the basis of the measurements in the
following experiments.
3. Results and discussion
3.1 Trigger HIFU mode
In the trigger HIFU mode, a trigger pulse at a high peak
power corresponding to a high voltage (>300 Vpp) for a short
duration of 5–200 µs and a heating burst with a medium
output (<100 Vpp) for a long duration up to 1–10 s are used
07JF21-4
S. Tamano et al.
in combination. In repetitive transmission in this mode, more
power is consumed for transmitting the heating bursts than
trigger pulses. Therefore, the reduction in power consump-
tion has to be the first concern in heating burst transmission.
When a seven-step staircase amplifier with three positive and
negative steps is used in the trigger HIFU mode, the five
lower steps with two positive and negative steps among the
seven steps can be used for heating burst transmission. In
contrast, three voltage steps with only one positive and
negative step among the five steps can be used for heating
burst transmission when a five-step staircase amplifier with
two positive and negative steps is used in the trigger HIFU
mode.
Figure 4 shows the driving waveforms of the prototype
amplifier in the trigger HIFU mode at 1 MHz, with the trigger
pulse and heating burst driving voltages of 400 and 100 Vpp,
respectively. The power spectra of the trigger pulse and
heating burst are also shown. The upper figures show those
with two positive and negative voltage steps of 200.3 and
49.8 V. In this case, all the four power supply voltages are
used for trigger pulse generation, and the two lower supply
voltages are used for heating burst generation. The lower
figures show those with three positive and negative voltage
steps of 200.3, 49.8, and 20.1 V. In this case, all the six
power supply voltages are used for trigger pulse generation,
and the four lower supply voltages are used for heating burst
generation. The lower and upper supply voltages correspond
to the proposed and previous circuits, respectively.
The harmonic spectral levels corresponded with those of
the fundamental levels are listed in Table III. The third and
fifth harmonic levels of the heating burst generated by the
proposed circuit were 10 and 47 dB lower than those of the
previous circuit, respectively. This resulted in a significantly
smaller temperature rise of the MOSFETs and lower power
consumption of the proposed circuit than of the previous
circuit, as shown in Table III. The power consumption of
the proposed circuit was approximately 80% of that of the
previous circuit while the fundamental power of the proposed
circuit was approximately 90% of that of the previous circuit.
The reason why the reduction in the MOSFET temperature
rise by the proposed circuit was considerably more significant
than the reduction in the power consumption is probably
because the major portion of the consumed electric power
may have been converted to acoustic power by the driven
array transducer and only the remaining electric power may
have contributed to the heating of MOSFETs. This character-
istic is very important when a large number of such circuits in
a compact form are used to drive an array transducer.
3.2 Second-harmonic superimposed wave mode
A second-harmonic superimposed pressure waveform at a
low intensity can be written as13)
p ¼ p1 cos !t þ p2 cosð2!t þ ’Þ; ð1Þ
where p1 and p2 are the amplitudes of the fundamental and
second-harmonic superimposed pressure waveform, respec-
tively, and φ is the phase of the second-harmonic super-
imposed pressure waveform relative to the fundamental
superimposed pressure waveform. φ is set at π and zero for
the peak negative-enhanced (PNE) and peak positive-
enhanced (PPE) waves, respectively. The ratio of the peak
positive to the negative pressure of the PPE waveforms,
© 2017 The Japan Society of Applied Physics
Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 56, 07JF21 (2017) S. Tamano et al.

Table III. Trigger HIFU heating mode transmission waveform comparison.

Circuit configuration
Previous circuit Proposed circuit
Power supply steps 4 6
Triggered-HIFU transmission mode Triggered pulse Heating burst Triggered pulse Heating burst
Power consumption (W) — 17.6 — 14.1
MOSFET temperature rise (°C) — 85.1 — 46.9
Third harmonics amplitude relative to the fundamental wave (dB) −22.1 −17.5 −23.0 −27.4
Fifth harmonics amplitude relative to the fundamental wave (dB) −48.6 −32.4 −53.2 −79.5

(a-1) (b-1) (c-1)

Voltage [V]

Power [dB]
Voltage [V]

Time [μs] Frequency [MHz]

Time [μs]
(d-1) (e-1)
Voltage [V]

Power [dB]
Time [μs]
Frequency [MHz]

(a-2) (b-2) (c-2)

Voltage [V]

Power [dB]
Voltage [V]

Time [μs] Frequency [MHz]

Time [μs]
(d-2) (e-2)
Power [dB]
Voltage [V]

Time [μs] Frequency [MHz]

Fig. 4. (Color online) Previous and proposed circuit trigger HIFU waveforms and power spectra at 1 MHz transmission: Upper figures (a-1)–(e-1) show
experiment results of the previous circuit with four power voltage steps. (a-1) actual 400 Vpp trigger pulse and 100 Vpp heating burst waveform, (b-1) trigger
pulse waveform, (c-1) trigger pulse power spectrum, (d-1) heating burst waveform, and (e-1) heating burst power spectrum. Lower figures (a-2)–(e-2) show
experimental results of the proposed circuit with six-power-voltage-step. (a-2) actual 400 Vpp trigger pulse and 100 Vpp heating burst waveform, (b-2) trigger
pulse waveform, (c-2) trigger pulse power spectrum, (d-2) heating burst waveform, and (e-2) heating burst power spectrum. In the heating burst waveform, the
proposed circuit is 9.9 and 47.1 dB smaller than the previous circuit at the third and fifth harmonics, respectively.

p+=∣p−∣, becomes maximum when p2=p1 is 0.5. Similarly, the
ratio of the peak negative to the positive pressure of the
PNE waveforms, ∣p−∣=p+, becomes maximum when p2=p1 is
0.5. The peak positive pressure and the absolute peak nega-
tive pressure both become maximum when p2=p1 is 1 at the
same total acoustic power of the fundamental and second-
harmonic.
A high peak negative pressure13) is a key factor for
generating acoustic cavitation. A high peak positive pres-
sure13) also has been reported to be effective for generating a
large cavitation cloud from a small number of cavitation
07JF21-5
bubbles. Therefore, both PNE and PPE waveforms should
be useful as the trigger pulse in the trigger HIFU mode.
Such waveforms can be generated easily by a class A linear
amplifier such as E&I 100A2.33) However, class A linear
amplifiers are not suitable for driving a multichannel
transducer in the compact amplifier form because they
themselves generate heat; at least they can generate acoustic
power. On the other hand, conventional class D amplifiers do
not generate heat themselves considerably and thus cannot
generate complicated waveforms such as those with second-
harmonic superimposition. The staircase voltage amplifiers
© 2017 The Japan Society of Applied Physics
Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 56, 07JF21 (2017) S. Tamano et al.

(a-1) (b-1) (c-1)

Voltage [V]

Power [dB]
Amplitude

Time [μs] Frequency [MHz]

Time [μs]
(d-1) (e-1)

Power [dB]
Voltage [V]

Time [μs] Frequency [MHz]

(a-2) (b-2)
(c-2)
Amplitude

Voltage [V]

Power [dB]
Time [μs] Time [μs] Frequency [MHz]
(d-2)
(e-2)
Voltage [V]

Power [dB]

Time [μs] Frequency [MHz]

Fig. 5. (Color online) Ideal and experimental results of second-harmonic superimposed PNE, PPE waveform, and a power spectrum when p2=p1 is 1: The
upper figures (a-1)–(e-1) show the ideal PNE waveform and experimental results. (a-1) ideal waveform, (b-1) three-power-voltage-step waveform, (c-1) three-
power-voltage-step power spectrum, (d-1) five-power-voltage-step waveform, and (e-1) five-power-voltage-step power spectrum. In the three-power-voltage-
step transmission circuit and the five-power-voltage-step transmission circuit, there is no large difference in the second-harmonic generation level. However, in
the five-power-voltage-step transmission circuit, the third and fourth harmonics are smaller by 22.6 and 13.0 dB, respectively than in the three-power-voltage-
step circuit. The lower figures (a-2)–(e-2) show the ideal PPE waveform and experimental results. (a-2) ideal waveform, (b-2) three-power-voltage-step
waveform, (c-2) three-power-voltage-step power spectrum, (d-2) five-power-voltage-step waveform, and (e-2) five-power-voltage-step power spectrum. In the
three-power-voltage-step transmission circuit and the five-power-voltage-step transmission circuit, there is no large difference in the second-harmonic
generation level. However, in the five-power-voltage-step transmission circuit, the third and fourth harmonics are smaller by 45.1 and 9.5 dB, respectively, than
in the three-power-voltage-step circuit.

with multiple voltage levels proposed in this study may
potentially generate such complicated waveforms without
heating themselves considerably.
We designed and evaluated three- and five-level trans-
mission waveforms so that the acoustic powers of 1 MHz
fundamental and 2 MHz second-harmonic are the same.
Figures 5(a-1) and 5(a-2) show the ideal PNE and PPE
second-harmonic superimposed waveforms, respectively,
when p2=p1 is 1. Figures 5(b-1) to 5(e-1) and 5(b-2) to
5(e-2) show the exact PNE and PPE drive waveforms and
power spectra, at an either negative or positive peak voltage
of 200 V, respectively. Only three voltage levels were used
for the waveforms shown in Figs. 5(b-1) and 5(b-2) while
five voltage levels were used for those in Figs. 5(d-1) and
5(d-2). In the case of three-voltage-level transmissions,
positive and negative voltage steps of 200.3 V and ground
potential were used. In the case of five-voltage-level
07JF21-6
transmissions, positive and negative voltage steps of 200.3
and 101.6 V, respectively, and ground potential were used.
Their power spectra are shown in Figs. 5(c-1), 5(e-1), 5(c-2),
and 5(e-2). Because of the infinite rise and fall times, the
second-harmonic amplitudes were 1–2 dB lower than the
corresponding fundamental amplitudes. These can be ad-
justed to be closer to 0 dB if necessary. The unwanted third
and fourth harmonics are also significant in the waveforms
with three voltage levels while they are not more than −20 dB
in the five voltage levels. We also evaluated the PNE and
PPE waveform power consumptions and the MOSFET
temperature rise, at an either negative or positive voltage of
50 V, to prevent MOSFET damage due to excessive heat
generation. In this case, the five-voltage-level transmission
circuit reduced power consumption by 40.7% or more from
the three-voltage-level transmission circuit and suppressed
the device temperature rise beyond 51.3 °C. These confirm
© 2017 The Japan Society of Applied Physics
Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 56, 07JF21 (2017) S. Tamano et al.

Table IV. Second-harmonic superimposed wave mode transmission Consequently, we confirmed that the proposed circuit is
waveform comparison.
effective for second-harmonic superimposed PPE and PNE
Circuit configuration waveform generation. By combining our proposed circuit, a
Three-level Five-level multichannel transducer, and our proposed HIFU trans-
transmission transmission mission techniques, we can expect to generate cavitation
Generating waveform PNE PPE PNE PPE bubbles efficiently and accurately at the desired target
Second harmonics amplitude relative location and time. Consequently, this method could be
−1.4 −2.1 −1.8 −1.5
to the fundamental wave (dB) efficiently used for HIFU treatment, sonodynamic therapy,
Third harmonics amplitude relative
−6.5 −5.6 −29.1 −50.8
lithotripsy, and histotripsy.
to the fundamental wave (dB)
Fourth harmonics amplitude relative 4. Conclusions and future works
−8.0 −8.7 −21.0 −18.2
to the fundamental wave (dB)
We modified the HIFU ultrasonic transmission circuit
Power consumption (W) 148.9 169.3 88.3 88.6
previously reported and fabricated a HIFU transmission unit
Maximum temperature rise (°C) 81.4 93.9 30.1 31.8
with 128 channels integrated. In particular, by increasing the
transmission voltage level from four to seven, the heat
generation of the MOSFET device could be considerably
reduced. Simultaneously, we achieved a significant reduction
PNE in power consumption. As a result, the risk of MOSFET
damage is reduced, and HIFU can be transmitted stably and
Voltage [V]

safely. Our newly proposed circuit was demonstrated to be

PPE
Time [μs]
Fig. 6. (Color online) Actual drive waveforms for the 400 Vpp trigger
pulse exposure with PNE waves immediately followed by PPE waves at 1
and 2 MHz transmissions, using five-voltage-level circuit. When using the
ground-level clamping circuit, PG and NG in Fig. 2(b), the drive voltage
settled to the ground level immediately after the transmission.
that more than three-voltage-level are necessary to suppress
unwanted harmonics below a reasonable level and to prevent
MOSFET damage owing to excessive MOSFET heat
generation. These results are shown in Table IV.
Yasuda et al.34) found that HIFU exposure with PNE
waves immediately followed by PPE waves leads to the
generation of cavitation bubbles most efficiently in the
polyacrylamide gel phantom.
In a three-voltage-level transmission circuit, it was
impossible to generate a waveform with the unwanted
harmonics suppressed to a reasonable level. However, by
using a five-voltage-level transmission circuit, we were able
to generate the waveforms with almost equal fundamental
and second-harmonic acoustic powers and suppress un-
wanted harmonics below a reasonable level. As a result, by
using the five-voltage-level transmission circuit, we were
able to generate PNE waves immediately followed by PPE
waves at 1 and 2 MHz at a waveform voltage of 400 Vpp,
as shown in Fig. 6. Therefore, we can expect to produce
cavitation bubbles efficiently.
Yasuda et al.34) also suggested that the second-harmonic
superimposed ultrasound exposure cannot only generate
cavitation bubbles efficiently but also control them spatially
and temporally. Our proposed circuit is easily applicable to
multichannel arrays using multifocus transmission beam-
forming, three-dimensional cavitation generation position,
and the time of occurrence could be easily controlled.
effective for transmission of pseudosinusoidal waves not only
in the trigger HIFU mode but also in the second-harmonic
superimposed wave mode. The applicability of our proposed
circuit has expanded. In the future, we will evaluate the
transmission waveform acoustic characteristics of the circuit
by connecting the circuit to a transducer that supports 128-
channel dual-frequency transmission. Moreover, we are
planning to apply our newly developed HIFU unit in the
trigger HIFU mode and the second-harmonic superimposed
wave mode.
Acknowledgment
This research was partially supported by the Japan Agency
for Medical Research and Development, AMED.
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