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Pulse-Echo Ultrasound Imaging Using an AlN Piezoelectric Micromachined

Ultrasonic Transducer Array With Transmit Beam-Forming

Article  in  Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems · December 2015

DOI: 10.1109/JMEMS.2015.2503336

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JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
Pulse-Echo Ultrasound Imaging Using
an AlN Piezoelectric Micromachined
Ultrasonic Transducer Array With
Transmit Beam-Forming
Yipeng Lu, Hao-Yen Tang, Stephanie Fung, Bernhard E. Boser, Fellow, IEEE,
and David A. Horsley, Member, IEEE
Abstract— This work demonstrates short-range and high-
resolution ultrasonic imaging using 8 MHz aluminum
nitride (AlN) piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic trans-
ducer (PMUT) arrays, which are compatible with complemen-
tary metal-oxide semiconductor circuitry and wafer-level mass
manufacture. Because AlN has a low dielectric constant, the
PMUTs have low capacitance and a custom 1.8 V interface
application-specified integrated circuit with on-chip charge-pump
(1.8 to 32 V) is capable of providing sufficient output current
to drive the PMUT array. Transmit beam-forming is used to
produce a 90 µm focused acoustic beam-width. A pressure map
measured with a needle hydrophone agrees with finite element
method-simulations. Finally, 1-D and 2-D pulse-echo imaging was
conducted using metal targets. [2015-0236]
Index Terms— Piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic
transducer (PMUT), piezoelectric, micromachined, ultrasonic,
ultrasound, cavity silicon-on-insulator (SOI), phased array,
beam forming.
I. I NTRODUCTION
U LTRASONIC transducers have been used in many appli-
cations, such as nondestructive testing (NDT), object
recognition, and medical imaging. Compared with conven-
tional ultrasonic transducers, micromachined ultrasonic trans-
ducers (MUTs) with a compliant membrane structure [1], [2]
have been reported as a promising solution for pulse-
echo ultrasonic imaging [3], [4] due to their good acoustic
impedance matching [5], [6], broad bandwidth [7], [8], low-
cost array fabrication and ease of integration with support-
ing electronics [9], [10]. Capacitive MUTs (CMUTs) [2]
have been developed for decades and demonstrated for
2-D array and 3-D pulse-echo imaging [11]–[13]. Compared
with CMUTs, piezoelectric MUTs (PMUTs) [14] do not
Manuscript received August 26, 2015; revised October 29, 2015; accepted
November 18, 2015. This work was supported by the Berkeley Sensor and
Actuator Center, Industrial Members. Subject Editor J.-B. Yoon.
Y. Lu, S. Fung, and D. A. Horsley are with the Berkeley Sensor and
Actuator Center, University of California, Davis, CA 95616 USA (e-mail:
yplu@ucdavis.edu; stfung@ucdavis.edu; dahorsley@ucdavis.edu).
H.-Y. Tang and B. E. Boser are with the Berkeley Sensor and Actu-
ator Center, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA (e-mail:
b96901108@berkeley.edu; boser@eecs.berkeley.edu).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JMEMS.2015.2503336
1057-7157 © 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
1
require a high polarization voltage or small gap [5] to achieve
the required transducer sensitivity.
Previous research on pulse-echo imaging used PMUTs
based on lead zirconium titanate (PZT) [7], [15], a mate-
rial with high piezoelectric coefficients and high relative
permittivity [16], translating into higher sense capacitance
and consequent reduced sensitivity to interface parasitics.
Relative to PZT, Aluminum Nitride (AlN) is lead-free, can
be deposited at low-temperatures (<400 °C), and is compati-
ble with complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS)
fabrication [17], [18], which makes it attractive for highly inte-
grated, low-cost PMUT arrays. However, AlN has lower piezo-
electric coefficients and low relative permittivity, which results
in PMUTs with lower transmit pressure output and reduced
receiver charge sensitivity. Therefore AlN PMUTs make ultra-
sound pulse-echo detection more challenging and require a
low-noise and impedance-matched local pre-amplifier. How-
ever, an advantage of AlN’s low relative permittivity (∼100×
smaller than PZT) is that ∼100× less current is needed for the
transmit amplifier, which enables a low-voltage 1.8V interface
ASIC with an on-chip 32V charge-pump to drive an array
of AlN PMUTs [19]. Such low-voltage ultrasound imaging
sensors will enable many new applications [20] in healthcare
and biometrics, which require surface or short-range imaging.
For high-resolution and short-range ultrasonic pulse-echo
imaging, a high fill-factor MUT array is required to have a
narrow acoustic beam without near-field effects in the working
range (see detailed discussion in Section II). Furthermore,
a small pitch and high fill-factor are desirable to minimize
grating lobes and increase the acoustic efficiency per unit
area [10], [21]. However, previously-reported PMUTs
have large dimensions and pitch and therefore low fill-
factor; this results from fabrication using through-wafer
etching [15], [22], [23]. PMUTs based on cavity silicon-
on-insulator (SOI) wafers have the advantage of a simple
fabrication process which enables small PMUT size and a
high fill-factor of the PMUT array. Device fabrication and
characterization of these cavity SOI PMUTs was first demon-
strated in [16], and long-range pulse-echo imaging for human
tissue thickness measurement was demonstrated in [19]. In this
work, we demonstrate short-range (mm) and high-resolution
(∼100 μm) pulse-echo ultrasonic imaging using cavity
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2 JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
Fig. 1. Cross-section diagram of a single PMUT based on cavity SOI wafer.
TABLE I
P IEZOELECTRIC M ATERIAL P ROPERTIES [27]
SOI PMUTs. Transmit beam-forming is used to obtain
a narrow focused acoustic beam with increased pressure
amplitude [24].
II. PMUT D ESIGN AND M ODELING
A. PMUT Working Principle
Figure 1 shows the cross-section of a single PMUT based
on a cavity SOI wafer [25]. The piezoelectric layer transforms
energy between the electrical and mechanical domains, and
each PMUT can function as both a transmitter and receiver.
As a transmitter, the electric field between the top and bottom
electrodes creates a transverse stress in the piezoelectric layer
due to the converse piezoelectric effect [5]. The generated
stress causes a bending moment which forces the membrane to
deflect out of plane, launching an acoustic pressure wave into
the surrounding medium. As a receiver, an incident pressure
wave deflecting the plate creates transverse stress which results
in charge on the electrodes due to the direct piezoelectric
effect.
B. AlN vs. PZT
Most of the previous work on PMUTs has focused on
PZT [7], [8] and AlN [5], [26] due to the availability and
maturity of film deposition processes for these materials.
Material properties, including piezoelectric coefficient, e31 f ,
and the relative permittivity, ε33 , of AlN and PZT are listed in
Table 1. PZT has a ∼10× higher e31 f and a ∼100× higher
ε33 than AlN. Using the equivalent circuit model [5] of a
PMUT with the assumption that the energy loss is dominated
by acoustic damping, the transduction power efficiency, kt2 , is
proportional to the ratio:
kt2 ∝ e31
2
f /ε33 (1)
While PZT has higher piezoelectric constants than AlN, the
lower dielectric constant of AlN allows for a comparable kt2 to
be achieved. Furthermore, transmitter sensitivity (Pa/V), ST ,
and receiver sensitivity (V/Pa), S R , can be expressed as:
ST ∝ e31 f (2)
S R ∝ e31 f /ε33 (3)
These equations reveal that AlN has the potential
for ∼10× higher receiver sensitivity while PZT has the
potential for ∼10× higher transmitter sensitivity.
C. Acoustic Beam Pattern of a Single Transducer
A focused, narrow acoustic beam is essential for high res-
olution, pulse-echo ultrasound imaging. The far-field acoustic
directivity, Ddir (θ ), of a movable piston is given by [28]:
Ddir (θ ) = 2 J1 (kasinθ )/(ka sin θ ) (4)
where θ is the angle of incidence, a is the piston radius,
k = 2π/λ is the wavenumber, and J1 is the Bessel function of
the first kind. Then the normalized pressure, D(r ), at radial
distance r from the center of a PMUT for a specific axial
distance z 0 can be calculated using the following equation:
  
D(r )= D dir (arctan(r/z 0 )) z 0 / r 2 + z 02 (5)
Based on the equations above, one method to obtain a
narrow acoustic beam is by increasing the working frequency
when using a single ultrasound transducer. Calculated acoustic
beam patterns at a 1.5 mm distance from a single 50 μm
diameter PMUT with various working frequencies are shown
in Figure 2 (a). Since the beam pattern is axisymmetric,
only half of each pattern is shown. The calculations were
performed using c = 750 m/s, which is the speed of sound
in the insulating fluid used in our experiments, Fluorinert
FC-70 (3M Inc.). The results demonstrate that ∼400 MHz
working frequency is required to achieve sub-100 μm beam-
width. However, achieving such a high frequency requires
a PMUT working in thickness mode rather than in flexural
mode, resulting in poor acoustic impedance matching to fluid
and tissue. Additionally, higher working frequency results in
greater acoustic attenuation in such media.
Another method to obtain a narrow beam is to enlarge the
transducer’s diameter. Figure 2 (b) shows calculated beam
patterns for an 8 MHz transducer with various diameters from
0.2 mm to 2 mm. The results demonstrate that a 2 mm
transducer is needed to achieve sub-100 μm focus at 8 MHz.
However, large transducers suffer from undesired near-field
patterns, posing a problem for short-range imaging.
The on-axis pressure, P(z), generated by a moving piston
is [29]:
    
 1 
P (z) = 2ρ0 c0 u 0 sin kz 1 + (a/z)2 − 1  (6)
2
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LU et al.: PULSE-ECHO ULTRASOUND IMAGING USING AN AlN PMUT ARRAY 3

Fig. 3. On-axis pressure pattern of an 8 MHz transducer with various

diameters.

Fig. 2. (a) Calculated beam patterns at 1.5 mm axial distance for a single
50 μm transducer with various working frequencies; (b) calculated beam
patterns at 1.5 mm axial distance for an 8 MHz transducer with various
diameters.

where c0 is the speed of sound in the media, u 0 is the vibra-

tion velocity amplitude, and ρ0 is the density of the media.
A plot of the on-axis pressure, Figure 3, demonstrates a strong
interference effect that creates fluctuating near-field pressure.
The range over which these fluctuations occur can be reduced
by decreasing the piston diameter. When the diameter is
equal to or smaller than the wavelength (λ = 87.5 μm for
c0 = 750 m/s at f = 8 MHz), the pressure decreases monoton- Fig. 4. Optical images of the fabricated 72×9 PMUT array.
ically without near-field fluctuations. For this reason, small-
diameter transducers are desirable for short-range imaging. vacuum-sealed cavity beneath the PMUT and eliminating
the possibility of squeeze-film damping beneath the PMUT
membrane. The array is composed of 50 μm diameter PMUTs
D. PMUT Array
with 70 μm pitch, and the 9 PMUTs in each column are
To solve the problems noted above, rather than using a electrically connected together.
single high-frequency transducer, we use an 8 MHz phased
array to achieve narrow acoustic beam-width [24]. Optical
images of the 72×9 AlN PMUT array [25] are shown E. Beam-Forming and Scanning
in Figure 4. The PMUTs use 0.8 μm thick piezoelectric In transmit beam-forming, the acoustic beam is focused
Aluminum Nitride (AlN). PMUT arrays were fabricated via by varying the time-delay of the transmit waveform applied
a simple process [25] based on custom cavity SOI wafers to the columns of the PMUT array. The diameter of the
with a 2.5 μm thick Si device layer. The cavity SOI wafers focused spot depends on the aperture, which is equal to the
are prepared by wafer bonding in vacuum, resulting in a number of columns multiplied by the pitch between columns,
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4 JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS

Fig. 6. Beamforming using sub-array groups. The beam-forming pitch

is shown as twice the PMUT pitch but may be any integer multiple. The
focused spot of the beam is translated by switching from the 1st group of odd-
numbered PMUTs (blue) to the 2nd group of even numbered PMUTs (red).
The minimum scan step is defined by the PMUT pitch.
Fig. 5. Simulated beam pattern of a 15-column PMUT group having different
pitches between the columns. The axial distance is 1.5 mm.

which we refer to as the beam-forming pitch. Here, we

consider 15-column groups of PMUTs, and study the focused
spot diameter at various beam-forming pitches. The time delay
of each column is calculated using the differential propagation
path divided by the speed of sound. Figure 5 shows the
calculated acoustic beam patterns at 1.5 mm axial distance
for 15-column groups with various beam-forming pitches. The
acoustic beam-width narrows with increasing pitch (70 μm,
140 μm, 210 μm). This is similar to the theory of a single
transducer, where larger apertures result in a narrower acoustic
beam. The simulation shows that a 15-column PMUT array
with 140 μm beam-forming pitch can achieve an 82 μm beam-
width at 8 MHz.
While large beam-forming pitch is desirable to achieve a
narrow beam diameter, a small pitch between columns is
Fig. 7. Acoustic pressure measurement setup using a needle hydrophone.
required to allow high fill factor and therefore high acoustic
efficiency. To satisfy both of these objectives, a beam-forming
and scanning method was developed, as shown in Figure 6. eliminate the need to insulate the array. Figure 7 is a diagram
High fill-factor is achieved through a small 70 μm PMUT of the setup for pressure measurements in fluid. The PMUT
pitch, while a narrow beam-width is achieved by using a beam- array was wire bonded on a printed circuit board (PCB) and
forming pitch that is an integer multiple of the PMUT pitch, a glass tube is affixed on the PCB to form a small reservoir
thereby achieving a larger aperture from a small group of for the fluid. Then a needle hydrophone, with 40 μm effective
PMUTs. The focused beam can be scanned by sequentially diameter (Precision Acoustics), was immersed in the fluid to
switching between groups with a small step size that is measure the acoustic pressure.
defined by the PMUT pitch. As illustrated in Figure 6, the Figure 8 shows the measured acoustic pressure from
phase delays within a group are symmetric; this allows an a 15-column group of PMUTs, which are connected in
N-channel amplifier to drive a group containing 2N−1 columns as shown in Figure 4. The PMUTs are driven
columns of PMUTs. In experiments, amplifiers with N = 7 with 2-cycles of 8-MHz 18 Vpp pulses using an ultrasound
and N = 8 channels were used, corresponding to 13-column transmitting evaluation kit (TX-SDK-V1, Texas Instruments,
and 15-column PMUT groups. Dallas, Texas) with a time delay resolution of ∼0.78 ns. The
selected phase delay of each column is calculated based on
the acoustic propagation path length from each PMUT to the
III. R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION
desired focal point. Figure 8 (a) and (b) show measurement
A. Hydrophone Measurements results for a 15-element PMUT array with 70 μm and 140 μm
Ultrasound experiments were conducted with the PMUT pitch, respectively, using transmit beam-forming and no beam-
array immersed in an insulating fluid (Fluorinert FC-70, forming (PMUTs driven simultaneously). The measurement
3M Inc.) with similar acoustic impedance to that of human results demonstrate that beam-forming increases the pressure
tissue (Z = ∼1.5 MRayls) and high electrical resistance to amplitude ∼3×, compared with the pressure produced from
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LU et al.: PULSE-ECHO ULTRASOUND IMAGING USING AN AlN PMUT ARRAY
Fig. 8. Measured pressure from a 9×15 PMUT array with 70 μm (a) and
140 μm (b) beam-forming pitch.
the same 15-column PMUT group without beam-forming
(all PMUTs driven with the same phase delay). Furthermore,
in agreement with the simulation shown in Figure 5, a larger
beam-forming pitch, 140 μm, reduces the peak pressure to
70 kPa compared to the 80 kPa produced with 70 μm beam-
forming pitch. Finally, beam-forming results in a short acoustic
pulse ∼0.3 μs (−6 dB), corresponding to ∼200 μm wave
propagation length.
To study the fluid-immersed bandwidth, the measured pres-
sure signal is analyzed via Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). The
beam-formed pressure pulse is analyzed since pulses launched
from each PMUT arrive simultaneously at the focus, ensur-
ing that the time-domain signature represents the response
of an individual PMUT. To eliminate the contribution of
the driving signal, only the ring-down portion is used for
FFT analysis. Figure 9 shows the FFT magnitude of the
measured acoustic pressure shown in Figure 8 (a), showing an
8 MHz center frequency and a −3 dB bandwidth of 3.4 MHz.
For comparison, the PMUT’s frequency response measured in
air using a laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV) showed a 19 MHz
resonance frequency with quality factor Q = 140 and a peak
amplitude of 13.7 nm/V.
Figure 10 (a) shows the measured acoustic beam-patterns
for a 15-element PMUT array with 140 μm and 70 μm
5
Fig. 9. Magnitude of the FFT of the measured acoustic pulse.
beam-forming pitch at 1.5 mm away from the array. The
measured pressure amplitude agrees well with simulation
results. Compared with 70 μm beam-forming pitch, the sim-
ulation results show that 140 μm pitch reduces acoustic
pressure by ∼5%, but narrows −6 dB beam-pattern width
from 150 μm to 82 μm; the measurement results demonstrate
140 μm pitch reduces acoustic pressure by ∼13%, but narrows
−6 dB beam-pattern width from 200 μm to 90 μm. This
difference between simulation and experimental results may
be caused by the time-delay resolution of pulse generator or
non-ideal measurement positioning. Another possible cause
of the difference is that the simulation uses a continuous-
wave (CW) model, while measurements were obtained with
a pulsed-wave driving signal. This also explains why side
lobes shown in the simulation results were not observed in the
measurement results. The 2-D acoustic pressure field produced
using a beam-forming pitch of 140 μm is measured in the
x-z plane and shown in Figure 10 (b). The focused beam
demonstrates ∼0.4 mm depth-of-focus, which is suitable for
many imaging applications.
B. Pulse-Echo Imaging Experiments
Pulse-echo imaging was conducted using a custom 1.8V
interface ASIC [19], as illustrated in Figure 11(a). The
ASIC has a low-noise analog front-end pre-amplifier that is
impedance matched to the PMUT. Because the capacitance of
the 9 AlN PMUTs in each column is low (∼1 pF, including
bond pads), a low-power on-chip 32V charge pump is capable
of providing sufficient output current to drive a 15-column
PMUT group. As shown in Figure 11(b), the 1mm × 2mm
ASIC has 7 identical channels with 6-bit delay control and
5-ns resolution for transmit beam-forming, high-voltage level
shifters, and a receive/transmit switch that isolates the low-
noise receiver from the 32V transmit voltage. Instead of
requiring multiple external high-voltage power supplies, this
design generates all the necessary voltage levels from a single
1.8 V supply and is thus amenable to integration with battery
powered devices.
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6 JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS

Fig. 11. (a) System diagram of pulse-echo imaging using AlN cavity SOI
PMUT array and 1.8V 180 nm CMOS ASIC interface; (b) optical image of
the ASIC.

Fig. 10. (a) Measured acoustic beam-pattern compared with simulation

results for a 15-element PMUT array with 140 μm and 70 μm beam-forming
pitch; (b) 8 MHz transmit pressure measured using a hydrophone; 2-D acoustic
pressure pattern in x-z plane (inset: PMUT array showing xyz coordinates).

Fluid-immersed imaging experiments were conducted using

steel phantom targets patterned via laser cutting. 3 cycles of
32-V unipolar pulses with various time delays are used to
drive the PMUTs. While beam-forming is used to transmit a
focused beam, the echoes were received using a single column
of PMUTs in the middle of the transmitting group for simpler
signal processing. If all received signals from the PMUTs were
collected and processed, receive beam-forming could be used
to achieve higher SNR and imaging resolution [30]. Since Fig. 12. 1D B-scan pulse-echo imaging of a tilted steel phantom.
Inset: optical photograph of the phantom.
the 72×9 PMUT array is only 5 mm × 0.6 mm, it is too
small to image a large 10 mm × 10 mm phantom using
electronic scanning. Instead, mechanical scanning was used to
demonstrate the imaging performance. Transmit beam-forming with good imaging contrast and a large ∼0.6 V echo signal is
is used to obtain a narrow beam focused at 2 mm away from obtained. From the image, it is also clear that the phantom is
the PMUT array and a 100 μm scanning step is used to tilted and the leftmost and rightmost bars are wider than the
mechanically scan the steel phantom. Figure 12 shows the others, as confirmed by the optical image of the phantom.
B-scan image constructed from a lateral scan of this phantom. Figure 13 (a) and (b) show the difference in the pulse-
The phantom with ∼400 μm feature size is clearly imaged echo responses obtained from a steel strip and space of
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LU et al.: PULSE-ECHO ULTRASOUND IMAGING USING AN AlN PMUT ARRAY 7

Fig. 14. Measured pulse-echo ultrasonic C-scan image of a 2-D steel

phantom.

Fig. 13. Pulse-echo time response resulting from (a) steel strip and (b) the
gap between steel strips.

the phantom. They correspond to two vertical lines separated

by 400 μm distance in lateral direction (x-axis) in Figure 12.
The measurements were post-processed with a 4 MHz band-
pass filter, after which the envelope was obtained by demod-
ulation and low-pass filtering. Due to beam-forming, good
imaging contrast is obtained and the echo from the steel strip
is 540 mV, ∼10× of that from the gap (50 mV). In addition,
from Figure 13 (a), the second echo is also clearly observed
at 12 μs, which is equal to twice the arrival time of the first
echo, 6 μs. The 8-cycle ring-down of the pulse-echo response
is much larger than 2-cycle ring-down observed in hydrophone
measurements. One of reasons for this difference is that the
signal is filtered twice by the transducer’s frequency response Fig. 15. Pulse-echo time responses with and without beam-forming measured
(once on transmit, and again on receive). In addition, the 5 ns at positions corresponding to a steel strip and a gap between steel strips.
time-delay resolution of the ASIC is relatively coarse, resulting
in imperfect focusing of the beam. Finally, there is specular
reflection from the neighboring steel strips which produce In addition, the echo signal gradually varies in the longitudinal
echoes that return slightly phase-shifted relative to the primary direction because the phantom is tilted. Figure 15 shows pulse-
echo. Focusing at a distance equal to twice the imaging depth echo time responses obtained from the phantom with and
is a solution to this problem, but is only good for a large planar without beam-forming. While the echo signal has comparable
target and reduces the resolution when imaging small features. amplitude without beam-forming, the contrast ratio is greatly
Figure 14 shows a measured pulse-echo C-scan image of a degraded.
2-D steel phantom. As with the B-scan image, transmit beam-
forming is used to obtain a narrow focused beam and a 100 μm IV. C ONCLUSION
step-size is used to mechanically scan the steel phantom above This work demonstrates short-range and high-resolution
the PMUT array in a 2-D plane. The 600 μm features of ultrasonic imaging using an AlN PMUT array. Until now, most
the phantom are clearly imaged with good contrast and a work has focused on PZT PMUTs, since they produce much
large 1V echo signal is obtained. Compared with the 0.6 V higher signal levels than AlN PMUTs. Here, we demonstrated
amplitude shown in Figure 12, the relatively larger echo signal that an AlN PMUT array is suitable for pulse-echo imaging
observed here is caused by a larger area for specular reflection. when combined with a custom interface ASIC. Because AlN
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8 JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS
has a low dielectric constant, lower input currents are needed
to drive the array than would be needed for comparably sized
PZT PMUTs, and an on-chip 32V charge-pump provided suffi-
cient power for this purpose. 1-D and 2-D pulse-echo imaging
was conducted using steel phantoms, and the resulting good
contrast ratio (∼10×) and high spatial resolution (∼100 μm)
demonstrate the feasibility of using AlN PMUTs for short-
range and high-resolution surface imaging applications.
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Yipeng Lu received the B.S. degree in materi-
als science and engineering from Jilin University,
Changchun, China, in 2007; the M.S. degree in
microelectronics from Shanghai Jiao Tong Univer-
sity, Shanghai, China, in 2010; and the Ph.D. degree
in mechanical engineering from the University of
California at Davis (UCD), CA, USA, in 2015. Prior
to joining the Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center
with UCD as a Graduate Student Researcher, he was
a Digital Hardware Engineer with Huawei in 2011.
He is currently with Qualcomm as a Senior Engineer.
His research interests include MEMS sensors and actuators.
Hao-Yen Tang was born in New Taipei, Taiwan,
in 1989. He received the B.S. degree in electri-
cal engineering from National Taiwan University,
in 2011, ranking in the top 3% of his class. He is
currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in electri-
cal engineering with the University of California
at Berkeley (UCB). He is a Graduate Student
Researcher with the Berkeley Sensor and Actu-
ator Center, UCB. His research interests include
ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, ultrasonic imaging,
sensor interface circuits, high-voltage electronics,
and mixed signal integrated circuits. He was a recipient of the SSCS
Pre-Doctoral Award in 2015 and the ADI Outstanding Student Designer Award
in 2015.
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.

LU et al.: PULSE-ECHO ULTRASOUND IMAGING USING AN AlN PMUT ARRAY 9

Stephanie Fung received the B.S. degree in David A. Horsley (M’97) received the B.S., M.S.,
electrical engineering from San Jose State Uni- and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from
versity, San Jose, CA, USA, in 2013. She is the University of California, Berkeley, CA, in 1992,
currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in mechani- 1994, and 1998, respectively. He held research
cal and aerospace engineering with the University and development positions with Dicon Fiberoptics,
of California at Davis (UCD), Davis, CA, USA. Hewlett Packard Laboratories, and Onix Microsys-
She is a Graduate Student Researcher with the tems. He is a Professor with the Department of
MEMS Laboratory, UCD. Her research interests Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University
include micro/nanofabricated sensors and actuators of California at Davis (UC Davis), CA, and has
with applications in mobile devices, biotechnology, been the Co-Director of the Berkeley Sensor and
and translational medicine. Actuator Center since 2005. His research interests
include microfabricated sensors and actuators with applications in ultrasonics
and physical sensors. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award and the
UC Davis College of Engineering’s Outstanding Junior Faculty Award.

Bernhard E. Boser (S’79–M’83–SM’01–F’03)

received the Ph.D. degree from Stanford Univer-
sity, in 1988. He was a Member of the Technical
Staff with Bell Laboratories. In 1992, he joined
as a Faculty Member with the EECS Department,
UC Berkeley. His research is in the area of analog
and mixed signal circuits, with a special emphasis
on ADCs and micromechanical sensors and actua-
tors. He served as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE
J OURNAL OF S OLID -S TATE C IRCUITS , President
of the Solid-State Circuits Society, and is on the
Program Committees of ISSCC, VLSI Symposium, and Transducers. He is the
Co-Founder of SiTime and Chirp Microsystems.

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