An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus is disclosed which can reduce the
device amount of a receiving circuit, while obtaining the shape of an
excellent received beam. In this ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, a
plurality of transducer elements are arrayed and used as an ultrasonic
probe, and the transducer elements are driven by a plurality of
transmission driving circuit. The signal received by the transducer
element is distributed to any of a plurality of input terminals of a
cross point switch beam former. The received signals of the three
transducer elements near the center of the aperture of the ultrasonic
probe are added and inputted to one terminal of a beam former. The
second, fourth and sixth transducer elements at the end of the aperture
are not connected to the beam former. The signals received by the
transducer elements are delay-added by the beam former. The delay
precision can be improved, and the beam shape can be made sharper,
thereby improving the image quality of the ultrasonic image.