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Terason, a division of Teratech
Corporation, is a diagnostic ultrasound technology
company that is setting new standards for imaging performance,
ease of use, size, and cost. The company’s
breakthrough Teratech™ Architecture and
cutting edge system integration technologies help improve patient care by enabling
compact equipment to generate highly informative diagnostic images previously
possible only using large, expensive machines.
A Foundation in
Research
Teratech Corporation was established
in 1994 as a spin off from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory. Teratech’s
CEO, Dr. Alice Chiang, founded the company to apply
developments in the fields of radar, sonar and telecommunications
technologies to the demanding requirements of battlefield
ultrasound. Recognizing that decades of breakthrough
research for the Department of Defense could be applied
to the challenges of mainstream ultrasound imaging,
Dr. Chiang formed the Terason division in 1996. With
initial financing and key patents protecting the integrated
circuit technology she developed at MIT, Dr. Chiang
dedicated the Terason division to the development of
a microminiaturized ultrasound system.
Trained as a
physicist, Dr. Chiang had already been recognized
for her contributions to radar signal processing
at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. “As I learned
more about ultrasound I realized that currently used ‘conventional’ ultrasound
systems are based on outdated 1970’s technologies. Most
efforts to miniaturize ultrasound have consisted of
shoehorning the same old thing into smaller boxes,
with all the tradeoffs in capability and image quality
that implies,” she said. “As an analogy,
if the development of portable computers paralleled
what’s been happening in ultrasound, we would
be lugging around collections of miniature vacuum tubes
and stacks of miniaturized punched cards instead of
the carrying the sleek LCD screens and integrated-circuit
microprocessors we now take for granted.”
A Leading Ultrasound Provider
Having
delivered on the promise of high performance micro-miniaturization,
Terason has shipped thousands of ultrasound systems
both to clinicians and such OEM partners as Siemens,
Brainlab and Endocare since 2000. Terason
systems are routinely used in the fields of vascular
surgery, interventional radiology, endocrinology and
nephrology, and the company is the market leader in
the ultrasound-guided venous intervention segment. In
addition, leading medical device partners have integrated
Terason's unique system-on-a-chip technology into high
performance multi-modality diagnostic systems that
are used in cardiac catheterization equipment, as well
as in surgical planning and tissue biopsy applications. Ultrasound
guidance can improve the safety and efficiency of such
procedures.
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