Enhancement of the number and array density of nozzles within an inkjet head
chip is one of the keys to raise the printing speed and printing resolutions.
However, traditional 2D architecture of driving circuits can not meet the
requirement for high scanning speed and low data accessing points when nozzle
numbers greater than 1000. This paper proposes a novel architecture of
high-selection-speed three-dimensional data registration for inkjet
applications. With the configuration of three-dimensional data registration,
the number of data accessing points as well as the scanning lines can be
greatly reduced for large array inkjet printheads with nozzles numbering more
than 1000. This IC (Integrated Circuit) architecture involves three-dimensional
multiplexing with the provision of a gating transistor for each ink firing
resistor, where ink firing resistors are triggered only by the selection of
their associated gating transistors. Three signals: selection (S), address (A),
and power supply (P), are employed together to activate a nozzle for droplet
ejection. The smart printhead controller has been designed by a 0.35 um CMOS
process with a total circuit area, 2500 x 500 microm2, which is 80% of the
cirucuit area by 2D configuration for 1000 nozzles. Experiment results
demonstrate the functionality of the fabricated IC in operation, signal
transmission and a potential to control more than 1000 nozzles with only 31
data access points and reduced 30% scanning time.Comment: Submitted on behalf of EDA Publishing Association
(http://irevues.inist.fr/EDA-Publishing