Incremental printing of symbolic information – Ink jet – Controller
Reexamination Certificate
2001-01-05
2003-07-01
Barlow, John (Department: 2853)
Incremental printing of symbolic information
Ink jet
Controller
C347S013000, C347S180000, C347S211000, C347S042000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06585339
ABSTRACT:
THE FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to inkjet printheads, and more particularly to a wide-array inkjet printhead assembly.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
A conventional inkjet printing system includes a printhead, an ink supply which supplies liquid ink to the printhead, and an electronic controller which controls the printhead. The printhead ejects ink drops through a plurality of orifices or nozzles and toward a print medium, such as a sheet of paper, so as to print onto the print medium. Typically, the orifices are arranged in one or more arrays such that properly sequenced ejection of ink from the orifices causes characters or other images to be printed upon the print medium as the printhead and the print medium are moved relative to each other.
In one arrangement, commonly referred to as a wide-array inkjet printing system, a plurality of individual printheads, also referred to as printhead dies, are mounted on a single carrier. As such, a number of nozzles and, therefore, an overall number of ink drops which can be ejected per second is increased. Since the overall number of drops which can be ejected per second is increased, printing speed can be increased with the wide-array inkjet printing system.
Typically, the printhead ejects the ink drops through the nozzles by rapidly heating a small volume of ink located in vaporization chambers with small electric heaters, such as thin film resisters. Heating the ink causes the ink to vaporize and be ejected from the nozzles. Typically, for one dot of ink, a remote printhead controller typically located as part of the processing electronics of a printer, activates an electrical current from a power supply external to the printhead. The electrical current is passed through a selected thin film resister to heat the ink in a corresponding selected vaporization chamber.
One problem with wide-array inkjet printing systems, is that the number of nozzles on a single carrier is quite large, and the number of corresponding thin film resisters which need to be electrically coupled to the remote printhead controller results in a correspondingly large number of conductive paths carrying nozzle firing and other data signals to the printheads. The interconnect count and printer overhead for managing such large numbers of nozzle firing and other data signals significantly increases the cost of producing a wide-array inkjet printing system.
For reasons stated above and for other reasons presented in greater detail in the Description of the Preferred Embodiment section of the present specification, a wide-array inkjet printing system is desired which minimizes the number of conductive paths carrying data signals to and from the printheads.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
One aspect of the present invention provides an inkjet printhead assembly including a carrier, N printheads disposed on the carrier, and a module manager disposed on the carrier. The module manager receives a serial input data stream and a corresponding input clock signal from a printer controller located external from the inkjet printhead assembly. The module manager demultiplexes the serial data stream into N serial output data streams. The module manager provides the N serial output data streams and N corresponding output clock signals based on the input clock signal to the N printheads.
In one embodiment, the input data stream comprises print data, such as nozzle data. In one embodiment, the N printheads each include a plurality of nozzles. The nozzle data controls the printheads to eject ink drops from the nozzles.
In one embodiment, the module manager is implemented in an integrated circuit. In one embodiment, the integrated circuit is an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC).
In one embodiment, the module manager includes a clock generator which receives the input clock signal which has active edges at a defined frequency and provides the N output clock signals which each have active edges at a frequency N times slower than the defined frequency. In one embodiment, the module manager includes N registers which each receive the serial input data stream and each provide one of the N serial output data streams to a corresponding one of the N printheads. In one embodiment, where the N registers are correspondingly clocked by the N output clock signals, the module manager receives the data in the serial input data stream at N times the speed that each of the N serial output data streams is provided to the corresponding one of the N printheads.
In one embodiment, a plurality of inkjet printhead sub-assemblies or modules form one inkjet printhead assembly. The inkjet printhead modules each include a carrier which carries a plurality of printheads and a module manager.
One aspect of the present invention provides a wide-array inkjet printing system including a printer controller receiving and processing data related to the printer from a host system, and providing a first serial data stream and corresponding first clock signal. The wide-array inkjet printing system includes an inkjet printhead assembly having a carrier, N printheads disposed on the carrier, and a module manager disposed on the carrier. The module manager receives the first serial data stream and a first clock signal from the printer controller. The module manager demultiplexes the first serial data stream into N serial output data streams. The module manager provides the N serial output data streams and N corresponding output clock signals based on the first clock signal to the N printheads.
One aspect of the present invention provides a method of inkjet printing including receiving, at a module manager disposed on a carrier, a serial input data stream and a corresponding input clock signal from a printer controller located external from the carrier. The method also includes demultiplexing, at the module manager, the serial data stream into N serial output data streams. The method also includes providing, from the module manager, the N serial output data streams and N corresponding output clock signals based on the input clock signal to N printheads disposed on the carrier.
The present invention can provide an inkjet printhead assembly that can be incorporated into wide-array inkjet printing system where the number of conductive paths in the print data interconnect between the printer controller and inkjet printhead assembly is significantly reduced, because the module manager is capable of much faster data rates than data rates provided by current printheads. This reduction in the number of conductive paths in the print data interconnect significantly reduces costs and improves reliability of the printhead assembly and the wide-array inkjet printing system.
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Anderson Daryl E.
Barbour Michael J.
Schloeman Dennis J.
Barlow John
Nguyen Lam S
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