From Medison Co.,Ltd.;
'The Ultimate Black & White Ultrasound System.
Redefining the standard of excellence in digital B/W ultrasound.
Medison, the innovator in medical science, proudly introduces the ultimate evolution in black-and-white ultrasound system - the 128 BW. With its revolutionary responsive imaging technology, powered by Medison's harmonic imaging and digital 128 channel beamforming, 128 BW produces crystal-clear images in fraction of time. Designed and committed for excellent performance, 128 BW guarantees its scientific breakthrough results.'

The wider the ultrasound beam, the more severe the problem with volume averaging and the beam-width artifact, to avoid this, the ultrasound beam can be shaped with lenses.
Different possibilities to focus the beam:

Conventional multi-element transducers are electronically focused in order to minimize beam width. This transducer type can be focused electronically only along the long axis of the probe where there are multiple elements, along the short axis (elevation axis) are conventional transducers only one element wide. Electronic focusing in any axis requires multiple transducer elements arrayed along that axis. Short axis focusing of conventional multi-element transducers requires an acoustic lens which has a fixed focal length.
For operation at frequencies at or even above 10 MHz, quantization noise reduces contrast resolution. Digital beamforming gives better control over time delay quantization errors. In digital beamformers the delay accuracy is improved, thus allowing higher frequency operation. In analog beamformers, delay accuracy is in the order of 20 ns.
Phased beamformers are suitable to handle linear phased arrays and are used for sector formats such as required in cardiography to improve image quality. Beamforming in ultrasound instruments for medical imaging uses analog delay lines. The signal from each individual element is delayed in order to steer the beam in the desired direction and focuses the beam.
The receive beamformer tracks the depth and focuses the receive beam as the depth increases for each transmitted pulse. The receive aperture increase with depth. The lateral resolution is constant with depth, and decreases the sensitivity to aberrations in the imaged tissue. A requirement for dynamic control of the used elements is given. Since often a weighting function (apodization) is used for side lobe reduction, the element weights also have to be dynamically updated with depth.

See also Huygens Principle.

From SIUI Inc.;
'The SIUI CTS-200 is one of few 'linear only' units to be developed with a digital scan converter to process all incoming signals. With a digital processor, not only is the incoming signal processed faster but less noise is introduced into the signal path. The images are cleaner, crisper than you have experienced, even in machines at many times the price.'
'CTS-200 is suitable to a wide range of examination of liver, gallbladder, kidney, spleen, pancreas, thyroid gland, breast, uterus, urinary bladder, OB/GYN, etc. It is a portable ultrasound scanner of high performance.'

From SIUI Inc.;
'Incorporating the latest advances in technology, the CTS-6000 digital B/W ultrasound system provides exceptional imaging quality and complete diagnostic capabilities. It is equipped with extensive analysis package, super broadband multifrequency probes and disk storage capacity, a complete system that fully meets different clinical needs.
CTS-6000 sets a new standard for digital ultrasound imaging.'

From ESAOTE S.p.A.;
'The 260 Corvus is perfectly suited for multiple applications in black & white ultrasound. The digital console system is standard equipped with three probe connectors for a choice of various linear, convex, annular and annular phased array transducers. The 260 Corvus can be fully integrated into a digital hospital network (PACS) using the optional DICOM® compatible ImageLab™ module.'