Incremental printing of symbolic information – Electric marking apparatus or processes – Electrostatic
Reexamination Certificate
2002-01-18
2004-08-17
Hirshfeld, Andrew H. (Department: 2854)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Electric marking apparatus or processes
Electrostatic
C347S141000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06778198
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a printed wiring board (PWB) being used as a printhead and, more particularly, to a glass substrate printed wiring board printhead for electric paper.
Electric paper can be defined as any electronically addressable display medium that approximates paper in form and function. Electric paper should be light-weight, thin and flexible, and it should display images indefinitely while consuming little or no power. In addition, electric paper should be re-usable. One must be able to erase images and create new ones repeatedly. Preferably, electric paper should display images using only reflected light and allow a very wide-viewing angle.
One way to make electric paper possible using traditional electronic display technology is to completely remove the driving electronics from an electronic display package and use external addressing electrodes to write and erase images. This approach both reduces the per unit cost of electronic paper sheets and enables the use of cheap, flexible plastic films in place of glass plates for packaging. Multiple electronic paper sheets can then be addressed by a single set of external driving electronics, much like multiple sheets of pulp paper are printed on by a single printer.
This invention is designed for use with Gyricon electric paper but may also be used with electric paper based on liquid crystal, electrophoretic, and other field-effect display technologies.
The Gyricon sheet and display system is disclosed in various patents and articles, such as U.S. Pat. No. 4,126,854 by Sheridon titled “Twisting Ball Display”, commonly assigned as the present application and herein incorporated by reference. The Gyricon display system is comprised of an elastomeric host layer a few mils thick which is heavily loaded with rotating elements, possibly spheres, tens of microns in diameter. Each bichromal rotating element has halves of contrasting colors, such as a white half and a black half, and forms a single picture element or pixel. Each bichromal rotating element also possesses an electric dipole, orthogonal to the plane that divides the two colored halves. Each bichromal rotating element is contained in its own cavity filled with a dielectric liquid. Upon application of an electric field between electrodes located on opposite surfaces of the host layer, the rotating elements will rotate depending on the polarity of the field, presenting either the white side or the black side to an observer.
Printing is accomplished by imposing an electrical pattern over the sheet, where there is a voltage difference between the top side and the bottom side. A typical way to do this is to pass the paper under a charging bar. As the paper passes under the bar, voltages are applied along a set of closely-spaced electrical contacts, one for each bichromal rotating element or pixel.
The response pattern of the bichromal rotating element to an external electrical field determines the types of addressing that may be used to create images on the Gyricon electric paper display. There are known in the art three types of addressing schemes for displays.
In active matrix addressing, a separate addressing electrode is provided for each bichromal rotating element or pixel of the display and each of these electrodes is continuously supplied with an addressing voltage. The complete set of voltages can be changed for each addressing frame. This type of addressing places the least demands on the properties of the display medium, however, active matrix addressing is the most expensive, most complicated and most energy consuming type of addressing.
The second type of addressing scheme is passive matrix addressing. Passive matrix addressing makes use of two sets of electrodes, one on each side of the display medium. Typically, one of these consists of horizontal conductive bars and the other consists of vertical conductive bars. The bars on the front surface or window of the display are necessarily transparent. To address the display medium, a voltage is placed on a horizontal conductive bar and a voltage is placed on a vertical conductive bar. The segment of medium located at the intersection of these two bars experiences a voltage equal to the sum of these two voltages.
Passive addressing is less complicated and more energy efficient because the pixels of the display medium are addressed only for as long as is required to change their optical states. However, the requirements for a medium that can be addressed with a passive matrix display are significantly greater than for the active matrix case. The medium must respond fully to the full addressing voltage but it must not respond to ½ the full addressing voltage. This is called a threshold response behavior. The medium must also stay in whichever optical state it has been switched into by the addressing electrodes without the continuous application of voltage, that is it should store the image without power. Passive addressing is the most widely used method of addressing displays and is the lowest cost.
The third type of addressing, and probably the most useful for electric paper applications, consists of a linear array of addressing electrodes in the form of a bar that can be moved over the surface of the display medium. Typically, the medium is placed over a grounding electrode and is protected from possible mechanical damage from the moving bar by placing a thin window between the bar and the electric paper. As the bar is moved over the display medium, it applies voltages to specific bichromal rotating elements or pixels of the medium for short periods of time and generates a full image each time the bar is scanned over the surface.
Print heads can be used as the third type of addressing electric paper with a linear bar array as taught in U.S. Pat. No. 6,222,513, commonly assigned as the present application and herein incorporated by reference.
Printed wiring boards have been used as the print heads in electrostatic printing for electrically addressing points across a dielectric medium.
A printed wiring board is a flat plate or base of insulating material containing a pattern of conducting material. The patterned conducting material forms traces which electrically connect electronic components on the surface of the printed wiring board to form circuits.
The conducting material is commonly copper which has been coated with solder or plated with tin or tin-lead alloy. The usual insulating material is epoxy laminate. But there are many other kinds of materials used in more exotic technologies. Printed wiring boards are also called printed circuit boards.
The patterned conducting material in addition to forming connective traces also forms pads, conductive areas on the surface of the printing wiring board. Pads are provided on the board so that connection can be made to the surface mounted components. The surface mounted components are any of the basic electronic parts used in forming a circuit such as resistors, capacitors, DIP, integrated circuits and the like.
Single layer printed wiring boards have all the conductors, the traces, pads and surface mounted components on one side of the board. For the purpose of functioning as print heads, printed wiring boards have all their components and conductors on a single side.
Conventional printed wiring boards are manufactured by joining an epoxy laminate and a copper laminate with heat and pressure. The epoxy laminate is much thicker than the copper laminate and it provides mechanical support for the printed wiring board. Application of heat and pressure causes the epoxy to soften and bond to the copper laminate. The copper surface is treated either chemically, or electrochemically with dendritic treatment, both of which produce a jagged surface on a microscopic scale, which promotes adhesion to the epoxy laminate.
Photo-resist is then applied on the copper surface. Liquid photo-resist application has recently been replaced by “dry” photo-resist methods. In the dry photo-resist technique, a photo-resist film is laminated on the
Oliff & Berridg,e PLC
Xerox Corporation
LandOfFree
Glass substrate printed wiring board printhead for electric... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Glass substrate printed wiring board printhead for electric..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Glass substrate printed wiring board printhead for electric... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3356703