Incremental printing of symbolic information – Ink jet – Ejector mechanism
Reexamination Certificate
2001-07-06
2003-12-09
Vo, Anh T. N. (Department: 2861)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Ink jet
Ejector mechanism
C347S058000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06659591
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink jet recording head adapted for use in an ink jet recording apparatus for executing recording operation by discharging liquid such as ink, and a producing method therefor. The present invention is applicable not only to an ordinary printing apparatus but also to an apparatus such as a copying apparatus, a facsimile apparatus provided with a communication system or a work processor provided with a printing unit, or to a multi-function recording apparatus formed by complexing these apparatuses.
2. Related Background Art
The ink jet recording apparatus is a recording apparatus of so-called non-impact recording method, and has various features such as high speed recording, ability of recording on various recording media and scarce noise generation at the recording. For these reasons, the ink jet recording apparatus is widely employed in the recording mechanism of the printer, copying apparatus, facsimile, word processor etc.
As the representative ink discharging method in a recording head mounted on such ink jet recording apparatus, there is known a method of employing an electromechanical converting member such as a piezo element, a method of generating heat by irradiation of an electromagnetic wave for example with a laser and discharging an ink droplet by the action of such heat generation, and a method of heating ink by an electrothermal converting element having a heat generating resistance member and discharging an ink droplet by the action of film boiling. In an ink jet recording head employing the electrothermal converting element, such element is provided in a recording liquid chamber and is given an electric pulse constituting a recording signal to provide the ink with thermal energy, and the pressure of a bubble generated in the recording liquid (at the boiling thereof) resulting from a phase change therein to discharge a small ink droplet from a small discharge opening, thereby executing recording on a recording medium. In general, such ink jet recording head is provided with an ink jet recording nozzle and a supply system for supplying the nozzle with the ink.
For forming such recording head, there is already known, as disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 10-776, there is known a method of adhering and patterning a copper foil of a thickness of 50 microns on a polyimide film, electrically jointing, by thermal ultrasonic pressing, bumps on electrode pads on a recording element to the gold-plated electrode leads (inner leads) of thus formed TAB (tape automated bonding) tape, then sealing the jointed portion and adhering the assembly to a substrate. Also the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 9-300624 proposes a method of processing the electrode after bump formation. Also the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 11-138814 discloses a method of connecting plural recording elements to respectively independent TAB tapes and then adhering them to a substrate. In the configuration shown in the aforementioned Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 11-138814, there are provided plural recording elements for color printing, but there is also known a recording head which is internally divided so as to enable color printing by a single substrate.
The price of the ink jet recording apparatus is recently showing a remarkable reduction, so that the major issue is how to produce the ink jet recording head inexpensively. For this purpose, most effective is the reduction of the material cost of the component parts, particularly the integration of the substrate for the recording element, and there is widely employed a method of integrating the substrates of the recording elements for the inks of yellow, megenta and cyan colors. There are also employed a method of integrating the substrate of the recording element for the black ink frequently used for character printing with the aforementioned substrate of the color recording elements and a method of incorporating the substrate of the color recording elements and the substrate of the black recording element into a same recording head. For example the Japanese Patent No. 2839686 discloses a method of mounting plural different recording element substrates on a single TAB tape as an example of the driving semiconductor device. Such mounting method is to constitute a circuit by mutually connecting plural recording element substrates. However, in the configuration of connecting the plural recording elements respectively to the independent TAB tapes and then adhering to the support member as disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 11-138814, it is necessary to align each TAB tape with the support member at the adhering operation, while the recording apparatus inevitably becomes bulky since the recording elements cannot be positioned mutually very close, and the capping mechanism, for preventing liquid evaporation in the non-recording state, has to be made independent for each recording element. Furthermore, since a component, in which the TAB tape and the recording element are combined, has to be adhered to the support member, it is difficult to fix the recording element to the support member with sufficient precision. In case plural recording elements are present, it is even more difficult to adhere such recording elements with sufficient relative precision. Also since an operation of sealing the electrode leads (inner leads) with resin has to be executed in the air, the sealing agent ordinarily employed in the TAB technology may flow to and clog the discharge opening for discharging the recording liquid, or the inner leads may be exposed if the amount of the sealing agent is reduced in order to prevent such clogging phenomenon. Furthermore, the resin for sealing the inner leads may flow to the back side of the recording element so that some of the recording elements may become unable to be fixed.
Also in case of assembling the black ink recording element substrate and the color ink recording element substrate within a same head, it is necessary to mutually align the relative position of the respective liquid discharge openings. However, if an inner lead bonding step, for jointing the electrodes of a semiconductor chip with the inner leads (electrode leads) protruding in a device hole (aperture) provided in the film carrier tape, and a step of sealing the inner leads with resin, both steps being common in the TAB technology, are executed prior to the assembly of each recording element substrate into the head, the precision of the relative positional relationship of the discharge openings may be deteriorated to result in significant mutual blotting of the black ink and the color inks or in mutual positional displacement thereof at the ink jet recording operation.
Now there will be given an explanation on the conventional recording element unit with reference to
FIGS. 24 and 25
, which show, in the conventional TAB mounting process, a method of electrically jointing bumps on the electrodes of the recording element to the electrode leads of an electric wiring tape by thermal ultrasonic pressing, then sealing the jointed portion and adhering it to a support member.
In the conventional configuration shown in
FIGS. 24 and 25
, an electrical wiring tape H
300
has a three-layered structure in the vicinity of the bonding portion, consisting of a polyimide base film H
300
a
at the top side, a copper foil H
300
b
in the middle and a solder resist H
300
c
at the rear side. The electrical wiring tape H
300
is provided with a device hole (aperture) H
11
in which a recording element substrate H
100
is inserted and a device hole H
12
in which a recording element substrate H
101
is inserted, and, in such holes, there are exposed gold-plated electrode leads (inner leads) H
302
to be connected to bumps H
5
of the recording element substrate H
100
or H
101
.
In the first recording element substrate H
100
and the device hole H
11
of the electrical wiring tape H
300
, the conventional TAB mounting met
Iwanaga Shuzo
Kaneko Mineo
Miyazaki Kyota
Sato Osamu
Watanabe Yasutomo
Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
Fitzpatrick ,Cella, Harper & Scinto
Vo Anh T. N.
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