Ultrasonic instrument, also known as ultrasonic instrument and ultrasonic medical imaging equipment, is a medical instrument developed on the basis of ultrasonic principle and used in medical clinical, diagnostic and health fields. Ultrasound diagnostic instruments mainly refer to ultrasound diagnostic devices in medical imaging systems. Because of their lower price than CT and MRI, as well as the characteristics of non-invasive and real-time access to human tissue images, the scope of clinical applications is becoming more and more extensive, and the total sales growth worldwide is expected to exceed that of X-ray diagnostic devices.

There are various types of medical imaging equipment. In the current medical diagnosis system, the more common ultrasonic medical imaging equipment are A ultrasound and B ultrasound, which are classified according to the instrument display, as well as M ultrasound and D ultrasound; Classified by volume, there are desktop ultrasound and portable ultrasound; According to application classification, it can be divided into general ultrasound, traditional clinical application, non-traditional clinical application and bedside ultrasound; It can be divided into six categories according to performance and price: low-end, medium-low end, middle-end, medium-high end, high-end and ultra-high-end ultrasound.

After 38 years of domestic ultrasound, it has mainly experienced three important milestone development stages: the era of black-and-white ultrasound (1983-2003), which belongs to two-dimensional image, and has lasted for 14 years, gradually developing from analog to digital. In 1983, China's first B-type ultrasound diagnostic instrument was successfully developed. In 2003, Shantou ultrasound successfully developed the world's advanced all-digital B-ultrasound, and began to replace imported products, It marks that the industry has entered a new stage of development. Since then, black-and-white ultrasound has been gradually popularized, reaching hospitals at all levels and becoming one of the commonly used clinical diagnostic instruments; In the era of color ultrasound (1997-present), blood flow imaging was added to the two-dimensional image. The earliest foreign enterprises entered China in 1985, maintaining a monopoly position for more than 10 years. Shantou Ultrasound successfully acquired the color ultrasound technology and production line of American ATL Company in 1997, and took the lead in producing color ultrasound. Since then, domestic color Doppler began to rise. At the same time, due to the emergence of OEM manufacturers, the industry has developed vigorously, and domestic brands have gradually increased; The era of functional diagnosis (2000 - present) is also the development stage of ultrasound. From traditional morphological diagnosis to functional diagnosis, such as elastic imaging, tissue spot tracking, contrast-enhanced ultrasound, microscopic research, etc; The fourth development stage in the future may start from the development of materials science. The core component of ultrasound, the digital model establishment of probe and the improvement of material science and technology will probably be the future development direction. With the development of AI diagnosis, it will first step into the diagnosis of image and graphics. Ultrasound will probably be the starting point of AI and cloud diagnosis.