Semiconductor device manufacturing: process – Manufacture of electrical device controlled printhead
Reexamination Certificate
1998-07-10
2001-05-01
Mills, Gregory (Department: 1763)
Semiconductor device manufacturing: process
Manufacture of electrical device controlled printhead
C216S022000, C216S027000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06225138
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to the manufacture of ink jet print heads and, in particular, discloses a method of manufacture of a pulsed magnetic field ink jet printer.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Many ink jet printing mechanisms are known. Unfortunately, in mass production techniques, the production of ink jet heads is quite difficult. For example, often, the orifice or nozzle plate is constructed separately from the ink supply and ink ejection mechanism and bonded to the mechanism at a later stage (Hewlett-Packard Journal, Vol. 36 no 5, pp33-37 (1985)). These separate material processing steps required in handling such precision devices often adds a substantially expense in manufacturing.
Additionally, side shooting ink jet technologies (U.S. Pat. No. 4,899,181) are often used but again, this limits the amount of mass production throughput given any particular capital investment.
Additionally, more esoteric techniques are also often utilised. These can include electroforming of nickel stage (Hewlett-Packard Journal, Vol. 36 no 5, pp33-37 (1985)), electro-discharge machining, laser ablation (U.S. Pat. No. 5,208,604), micro-punching, etc.
The utilisation of the above techniques is likely to add substantial expense to the mass production of ink jet print heads and therefore add substantially to their final cost.
It would therefore be desirable if an efficient system for the mass production of ink jet print heads could be developed.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide an alternative form of ink jet printing which relies upon a pulsed magnetic field to activate an ink jet actuator.
In accordance with a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of manufacturing a pulsed magnetic field ink jet print head wherein an array of nozzles are formed on a substrate utilising planar monolithic deposition, lithographic and etching processes. Preferably, multiple ink jet heads are formed simultaneously on a single planar substrate such as a silicon wafer.
The print heads can be formed utilising standard vlsi/ulsi processing and can include integrated drive electronics formed on the same substrate, the drive electronics preferably being of a CMOS type. In the final construction, ink can be ejected from the substrate substantially normal to the substrate plane.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4423675 (1984-01-01), Luo et al.
patent: 5063655 (1991-11-01), Lamey et al.
patent: 5211806 (1993-05-01), Wong et al.
Mills Gregory
Powell Alva C
Silverbrook Research Pty Ltd
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