ULTRASOUND TRANSDUCER PROBE WITH FRONT-END CIRCUIT

The present invention relates to an ultrasound transducer probe 100 having an array of transducer elements 110 for transmitting ultrasound transmit pulses and receiving echo signals in response to these transmit pulses. More precisely, the invention refers to a front-end circuit 300, 300′ or 300″ preconnected to such an ultrasound transducer probe, wherein said front-end circuit, which may e.g. be realized as an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) with given input voltage constraints prescribing a limited supply voltagein1, comprises a transmission stage 301 which includes a branched voltage control line 302 or lines with two transmit branches 302a and 302b being respectively connected to a different terminal of each transducer element 110 for providing each of these transducer elements with a differential excitation or pulse voltageop whose amplitude level is up to twice the voltage levelin1 of the single-ended front-end circuit 300, 300′ or 300″ which is supplied by voltage control line 302.