The cQuest Cicada™ system is a complete 64-channel ultrasound front-end system that uses Cephasonics’ cQuest Ultrasound API™ software. The system provides the entire ultrasound front-end electronics, with connection on one end to an ultrasound transducer and on the other to a PCIe or USB interface to a back-end host PC or laptop. The cQuest Ultrasound API software provided with the system allows customers an easy, fast way to develop a wide variety of ultrasound-based products. These end products range from stand-alone imagers, to application-specific appliances, to adding ultrasound capabilities to existing equipment in both medical and industrial applications. The cQuest Ultrasound API is a set of C++ libraries and header files providing user access to 1000s of system parameters. It is used to acquire data from, and control all Cephasonics cQuest Ultrasound™ platforms while abstracting the underlying hardware. The system hardware includes all the ultrasound-specific front-end transmit and receive analog, digital, and power circuitry, including Cephasonics' award-winning AutoFocus™ beamforming technology. Customers initially use the system for development of their application software. When they're ready to go to production and order the product in volume, they benefit from an unparalleled fast time to market since the exact same hardware and API software platforms are used. The baseline 64-channel system is expandable to 128 and 256 channel solutions.