A method and an apparatus for an ultrasound system provide compression of ultrasound signal samples after analog to digital conversion and before beamforming. The analog ultrasound signals received from an array of ultrasound transducer elements are digitally sampled by a plurality of analog to digital converters (ADCs) to produce a plurality of sequences of signal samples. Each sequence of signal samples is compressed to form a corresponding sequence of compressed samples. The resulting sequences of compressed samples are transferred via a digital interface to an ultrasound signal processor. At the ultrasound signal processor, the received sequences of compressed samples are decompressed. The typical processing operations, such as beamforming, downconversion and detection, are applied to decompressed samples. This abstract does not limit the scope of the invention as described in the claims.
