Surface micromachined ultrasound transducers in CMOS technology

Abstract

The paper presents a new technology for electrostatically driven ultrasound transducers, processed by only a few additional steps within a standard BiCMOS process. Measurements of the test structures showed good acoustic properties especially for application in fluids. The full integration with the electronic circuit allows the realization of a new generation of one- and two dimensional arrays for many different applications like low cost phased arrays or 2D arrays for specific medical applications like skin diagnosis.