Packaging and modular assembly of large-area and fine-pitch 2-D ultrasonic transducer arrays.

A promising transducer architecture for largearea arrays employs 2-D capacitive micromachined ultrasound transducer (CMUT) devices with backside trench-frame pillar interconnects. Reconfigurable array (RA) application-specified integrated circuits (ASICs) can provide efficient interfacing between these high-element-count transducer arrays and standard ultrasound systems. Standard electronic assembly techniques such as flip-chip and ball grid array (BGA) attachment, along with organic laminate substrate carriers, can be leveraged to create large-area arrays composed of tiled modules of CMUT chips and interface ASICs.