Why Are Medical Ultrasound Systems So Inexpensive?
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Why Are Medical Ultrasound Systems So Inexpensive?
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Re: Why Are Medical Ultrasound Systems So Inexpensive?
#2This kind of description can be made of any hardware piece. We came from a whole room, slow computer to an iPhone that can make billions of operations per second. I see the previous post as complaining about this not happening on the industry.
Of course making an iPhone (or a OnePlus phone if you want to get into low-scale) is not easy, but the technology has advanced and standardized enough to be considered "cheap" for what they offer, and really cheap compared with 10-20 years ago.
Why hasn't that happened with ultrasounds? Certainly most of the components have been around for a while and the process of making a "simple one" (in the way the average smartphone is simple ) should be a solved problem.
Re: Why Are Medical Ultrasound Systems So Inexpensive?
#3Really eye-opening to read in order.
Re: Why Are Medical Ultrasound Systems So Inexpensive?
#4This kind of description can be made of any hardware piece. We came from a whole room, slow computer to an iPhone that can make billions of operations per second. I see the previous post as complaining about this not happening on the industry. Of course making an iPhone (or a OnePlus phone if you want to get into low-scale) is not easy, but the technology has advanced and standardized enough to be considered "cheap"…
Indeed, but for the imaging industry there are only two potential clients: medical and welding.
The hobby/educational/large masses market don't make the cut so to scale down the costs.
The IT industry price ranges were also in the millions of dollars before people had a need to play Angry Birds on a device in their pocket
Re: Why Are Medical Ultrasound Systems So Inexpensive?
#5This kind of description can be made of any hardware piece. We came from a whole room, slow computer to an iPhone that can make billions of operations per second. I see the previous post as complaining about this not happening on the industry. Of course making an iPhone (or a OnePlus phone if you want to get into low-scale) is not easy, but the technology has advanced and standardized enough to be considered "cheap"…
* Several IC makers are selling integrated devices (TI, Analog, Maxim), for example at TI: LM96530 (Beamformer), LM96511 (VGA/LNA) and LM96570 (TR Switch).
Those are eight channels ICs, they cost $200 together. There are ICs for 16 or even 64 channels.
* Another claim is the need for a huge number of piezos, this probably a view from a remote past: With adequate coding and enough channels to enable beamforming, there is no meaning in having this extravagant number (200) of transducers IMO.
Re: Why Are Medical Ultrasound Systems So Inexpensive?
#6This kind of description can be made of any hardware piece. We came from a whole room, slow computer to an iPhone that can make billions of operations per second. I see the previous post as complaining about this not happening on the industry. Of course making an iPhone (or a OnePlus phone if you want to get into low-scale) is not easy, but the technology has advanced and standardized enough to be considered "cheap"…
I'm a hardware engineer and might be able to explain a bit. Industrial electronics doesn't seem to move at the same pace as consumer electronics from the outside, but there often is incredible progress at the same pace and perhaps faster than the consumer segments. It is often hard to discern to the outsider, because they lack domain knowledge to recognize these advancements.
On top of this, in certain fields, costs appear to remain stable and even go up a bit over time. In these industries, there typically isn't much demand for lower specc'd (AKA outdated) hardware. Often these products last such a long time that the used old models serve as the low cost market. Apple even copies this model by keeping their older products around longer than other companies and selling them at a lower cost.
In addition, the development of many industrial electronic products is extremely expensive and the markets are small (think 100s to 1000s per year). The company typically has to charge a very high price to stay in business.
While it's easy to look at something and think "I can make that with an Arduino or Raspberry Pi," this is basically the hardware equivalent of telling people you can make Facebook in a weekend (which used to be a popular claim here on HN years ago).
Re: Why Are Medical Ultrasound Systems So Inexpensive?
#7This kind of description can be made of any hardware piece. We came from a whole room, slow computer to an iPhone that can make billions of operations per second. I see the previous post as complaining about this not happening on the industry. Of course making an iPhone (or a OnePlus phone if you want to get into low-scale) is not easy, but the technology has advanced and standardized enough to be considered "cheap"…
I came here to make exactly the same argument. Or cars, if we pick something that also needs certifying (from a purely manufacturing perspective). I get that most people would rather have a car, so more cars get made, so they're cheaper. (Athough roughly comparable, and there's different models. To me, it seems a car is more complicated than an ultra-sound system).
The author of the original article made a good point that there may be a market for cheaper, non-medical ultrasound. The author of this article totally ignores this. Of course he's going to say they ought to cost as much as they do.
> but for now take my word [...] seriously, you don't want to use these things without strong safety regulations.
Why? Instead of being a condescending asshat and lording his career achievements over us, this guy could have explained if and why it might be dangerous to build one yourself, again for non-medical use. Wouldn't a good article with great arguments be more convincing than a list of credentials?
(edit: I'm reasonably convinced that devices in hospitals probably should cost that much, but this article didn't change that significantly. some of the details about impedance matching were interesting)
Re: Why Are Medical Ultrasound Systems So Inexpensive?
#8This kind of description can be made of any hardware piece. We came from a whole room, slow computer to an iPhone that can make billions of operations per second. I see the previous post as complaining about this not happening on the industry. Of course making an iPhone (or a OnePlus phone if you want to get into low-scale) is not easy, but the technology has advanced and standardized enough to be considered "cheap"…
* Several IC makers are selling integrated devices (TI, Analog, Maxim), for example at TI: LM96530 (Beamformer), LM96511 (VGA/LNA) and LM96570 (TR Switch). Those are eight channels ICs, they cost $200 together. There are ICs for 16 or even 64 channels. * Another claim is the need for a huge number of piezos, this probably a view from a remote past: With adequate coding and enough channels to enable beamforming, there…
e.g. the LM96530 is lifebuy, so it's basically discontinued. LM96511 & LM96570: not recommended for new design. In other words, those ICs are basically obsolete.
Re: Why Are Medical Ultrasound Systems So Inexpensive?
#9This kind of description can be made of any hardware piece. We came from a whole room, slow computer to an iPhone that can make billions of operations per second. I see the previous post as complaining about this not happening on the industry. Of course making an iPhone (or a OnePlus phone if you want to get into low-scale) is not easy, but the technology has advanced and standardized enough to be considered "cheap"…
I came here to make exactly the same argument. Or cars, if we pick something that also needs certifying (from a purely manufacturing perspective). I get that most people would rather have a car, so more cars get made, so they're cheaper. (Athough roughly comparable, and there's different models. To me, it seems a car is more complicated than an ultra-sound system). The author of the original article made a good point…
Cars, iphones and laptops are sold in quantities that are magnitudes larger than ultrasounds. Even if every school bought one for students to experiment with, you'd still only have all schools and doctors in the world as potential market. On top of that, medical devices are supposed to work in comparatively harsh environments (strong disinfectants etc.) for a long long time. Iphone lifetimes are measured in years, not decades and don't you dare and try to get a spare part for a 10 year old macbook. All of that means that evolution is much slower in that market - more small steps rather than big disruptive changes.
I'd also challenge that cars are more complicated than ultrasounds. They do have more moving parts, but allowed tolerances are magnitudes larger than a few microns in all places.
Re: Why Are Medical Ultrasound Systems So Inexpensive?
#10> If you can really build an effective ultrasound system that people want to buy for significantly less than the currently available price when you've no expertise in the field, then why hasn't someone else with vast experience in the field gone and done exactly that?
If you just made a new effective ultrasound system that passes the FDA, why would you sell it for a lower price when you also can make more money?