JP2003145742A - Substrate for recording head, recording head and recorder - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a substrate for a recording head having thereon a driver that reduces a time period from input of image data to ejection of ink. SOLUTION: Data of first, third, to (n-1)-th bits is stored in bits of a shift register 51, respectively and data of second, fourth, to n-th bits is stored in bits of a shift register 52, respectively. The number of bits of each of the shift registers 51, 52 is n/2. The time period for inputting image data to all the bits of the shift registers 51, 52 is one-half of a conventional one. As each wiring pattern for outputting each bit of image data of the shift register 51 to a latch circuit 2 and each wiring pattern for outputting each bit of image data of the shift register 52 to the latch circuit 2 can be alternately arranged, it is possible to uniformize among the bits of image data a delay in data-transferring caused by the impedance of the wiring pattern.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a recording head substrate used for a recording head for printing on a recording medium and having an energy conversion element for converting electric energy into printing energy, and more particularly to a recording head substrate. The present invention relates to a recording head substrate which is a semiconductor substrate on which a printing energy generation element for generating printing energy is formed.

Here, printing on a recording medium includes not only the operation of printing characters, but also the operation of printing characters other than characters such as symbols and figures.

[0003]

2. Description of the Related Art By applying energy such as heat to a liquid such as ink, a state change accompanied by a sharp volume change (generation of bubbles) is caused in the ink, and an action force based on this state change causes ink to be ejected from an ejection port. A so-called bubble jet (registered trademark) recording method has been conventionally known in which an ink is discharged and adhered onto a recording medium to form an image. In a recording apparatus using this bubble jet recording method, as disclosed in US Pat. No. 4,723,129, etc., an ejection port for ejecting ink and the ejection port are in communication with each other. Generally, an ink flow path and an electrothermal converter as an energy generating means for ejecting the ink arranged in the ink flow path are arranged.

According to such a recording method, it is possible to record a high-quality image at high speed and with low noise, and in the head for performing this recording method, the ejection openings for ejecting ink are arranged at a high density. Therefore, it has many excellent points that a high-resolution recorded image and a color image can be easily obtained with a small apparatus. For this reason, this bubble jet recording method has been used in many office devices such as printers, copiers, and facsimiles in recent years, and has also come to be used in industrial systems such as textile printing devices. .

By the way, the heating resistor for generating energy for ejecting ink can be manufactured by using a semiconductor manufacturing process. Therefore, in a conventional head using the bubble jet technology, a heating resistor is formed on an element substrate (recording head substrate) made of a silicon substrate, and a groove for forming an ink flow path is formed thereon. , The top plate made of resin such as polysulfone and glass is joined.

Further, by utilizing the fact that the element substrate is made of a silicon substrate, not only the heating resistor is formed on the element substrate, but also the driver for driving the heating resistor and the heating resistor are set to the head temperature. There is also a device in which a temperature sensor used for controlling the temperature and its drive control unit are configured on an element substrate (JP-A-7-52387). As described above, the head in which the driver, the temperature sensor, the drive control unit thereof, and the like are formed on the element substrate has been put into practical use, and contributes to improvement in reliability of the recording head and miniaturization of the apparatus.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing a circuit configuration of a conventional driver formed on a recording head substrate. As shown in FIG. 6, the driver for driving the n heating resistors includes a shift register unit 10, a latch circuit 2,
The enable circuit 3 includes n AND circuits 4 and n power transistors 5. The shift register unit 10 includes a shift register 11 that converts image data of a bit string input serially into parallel. The shift register 11 can store n-bit image data. The shift register 11 inputs the image data of the bit string input in series one by one in synchronization with a clock of a predetermined frequency, and outputs the input image data in parallel. The latch circuit 2 temporarily stores the image data of each bit output from the shift register 11 every time the image data is input to the shift register 11 by n bits, and drives the signal of each image data to drive each power transistor 5. Output as signals respectively. The enable circuit 3 outputs an enable signal for masking each drive signal output by the latch circuit 2.

Each enable signal output from the enable circuit 3 and each drive signal output from the latch circuit 2 are input to each AND circuit 4, and each AND circuit 4 performs a logical product operation of these signals. And output the resulting signal. The output of each AND circuit 4 is output to each power transistor 5, and when each power transistor 5 is turned on, a current flows through the heating resistor 6 connected to the power transistor 5. That is, the driver operates so as to drive the heating resistor 6 by turning on / off each power transistor 5 according to the pattern of the input image data, and record a desired image.

On the other hand, in the recording apparatus, in order to increase the recording speed, there is a demand for further increase in the number of nozzles and data transfer.
It is expected to increase in the future. But,
In the printing apparatus in which the driver as shown in FIG. 6 is formed on the print head substrate, the number of bits of the shift register 11 increases as the number of nozzles increases, so that each bit is input after image data is input. There has been a problem that it takes a long time until the data signal reaches all the parts, and as a result, a long time elapses from the input of the image data to the ejection of the ink.

Further, in the recording apparatus, the logic voltage of the driver or the like is being lowered. Generally, when the logic voltage becomes low, the transfer rate of the data signal in the circuit becomes slow. Therefore, in the shift register 11 as shown in FIG. 6, from the time when the image data is input to the time when the data signal reaches all the bits. There has been a problem that the time becomes longer, and as a result, it becomes a factor that hinders the speeding up of recording.

As a method for compensating for such a delay in data transfer, it is conceivable to increase the speed of the clock input to the shift register 11, but when the speed of the clock is increased, the influence of noise is large. Therefore, there is a limit to how fast the clock can be.

[0012]

As described above, in the conventional print head substrate, due to the increase in the number of bits of the shift register and the decrease in logic voltage due to the increase in the number of nozzles,
There is a problem that it takes a long time from when the image data is input to the shift register until the data signal reaches all the bits of the shift register.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a recording head substrate capable of shortening the time from the input of image data to the ejection of ink to increase the number of nozzles and speed up data transfer. And

[0014]

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the recording head substrate of the present invention is used for a recording head for printing on a recording medium and converts electric energy into printing energy. A plurality of energy conversion elements, a power transistor provided for each energy conversion element and driving each energy conversion element, and image data of a bit string input in series in synchronization with a clock of a predetermined frequency. A shift register unit for inputting bit by bit and outputting the input image data of each bit in parallel, and each bit output from the shift register unit every time the image data is input to the shift register unit by a predetermined number of bits. And a latch circuit for temporarily outputting the image data of In the recording head substrate, the shift register section includes a first shift register to which image data of odd-numbered bits of the image data of the bit string is input, and an even-numbered bit of the image data. And a second shift register to which the image data of 1 is input.

In the printhead substrate of the present invention, the first shift register in which the image data of the odd-numbered bits of the image data is input to the shift register section and the image data of the even-numbered bits of the image data. By providing two shift registers with the second shift register to which is input, the number of shifts of each shift register until the image data reaches all the bits of the shift register can be reduced to half. Therefore, the printhead substrate of the present invention can shorten the time from the input of image data to the ejection of ink, and can respond to the increase in the number of nozzles and the speed of data transfer.

Another recording head substrate of the present invention is
Each wiring for outputting the image data of each bit of the first shift register to the latch circuit and each wiring for outputting the image data of each bit of the second shift register to the latch circuit , Are arranged alternately.

With this arrangement, in the recording head substrate of the present invention, the delay of data transfer due to the wiring impedance or the like can be made uniform among the image data of each bit.

Another recording head substrate of the present invention is
The first shift register and the second shift register alternately input image data bit by bit at the falling edge and the rising edge of the clock.

In the print head substrate of the present invention, since each shift register inputs image data at both the falling edge and the rising edge of the clock, it has a predetermined number of bits rather than inputting the image data at one edge. The time for inputting image data can be shortened.

[0020]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Next, a print head substrate according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.
In all the drawings, the components having the same reference numerals indicate the same components.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the circuit arrangement of the printhead substrate of this embodiment. The printhead substrate of the present embodiment differs from the conventional printhead substrate of FIG. 6 in that a shift register unit 12 is provided instead of the shift register unit 10. Shift register unit 12
Is a shift register 51 which is a first shift register
And a shift register 52 which is a second shift register.

The image data of the bit string input to the print head substrate of this embodiment is the data 1 which is the bit string of the image data of the odd-numbered bits and the bit string of the image data of the even-numbered bits of the image data. And data 2 which is And the shift register 5
Data 1 is input to 1, and the shift register 52
Data 2 is input.

That is, assuming that the number of heating resistors is n, each bit of the shift register 51 has 1, 3,
, N−1th bit data is stored, and each bit of the shift register 52 stores 2, 4, ..., Nth bit data. The shift registers 51 and 52 output each input data to the latch circuit 2.

The latch circuit 2 conventionally outputs the 1, 3, ..., N-1th bit data output from the shift register 51 and the 2, 4, ..., Nth bit data output from the shift register 52. Similarly, is temporarily stored as n-bit data.

The number of bits of the shift registers 51 and 52 is
It is n / 2, which is half the number of bits of the shift register 11 in FIG. Therefore, the time required to store n-bit image data in each bit of the shift registers 51 and 52 is half the time required to store n-bit image data in each bit of the shift register 11.

As described above, in the print head substrate of this embodiment, the shift register section 12 is provided with the shift register 51 for inputting data 1 and the shift register 52 for inputting data 2. The number of data shifts until the image data reaches the shift register section can be reduced to half. Therefore, the print head substrate of the present embodiment can shorten the time from the input of image data to the ejection of ink.

Further, as shown in FIG. 1, the wiring between the shift register 51 and the latch circuit 2 and the shift register 5 are connected.
2 and the wiring between the latch circuit 2 are arranged alternately. By doing so, in the printhead substrate of the present embodiment, the delay of data transfer due to the wiring impedance and the like can be made uniform among the image data of each bit, and the number of nozzles is increased and the speed of data transfer is increased. We can meet your demands.

Further, the shift registers 51 and 52 in the print head substrate of this embodiment may input image data at the rising edge of the clock as shown in the timing chart of FIG. As shown in the timing chart of (b), the image data may be input at both the rising and falling edges of the clock. Figure 2
As shown in (a) and (b), assuming that the clock frequencies are the same, the image data is input at one edge when the image data is input at both the rising and falling edges of the clock. Than if you do
The time for inputting image data can be shortened. By doing so, the recording head substrate of the present embodiment is
It becomes possible to meet the demands for further increase in the number of nozzles and speedup of data transfer. For reference, the shift register 5 that reads serial image data at one edge
An example of the circuit configuration of 1 and 52 is shown in FIG. 3A, and the shift register 5 that reads serial image data at both edges
An example of the circuit configuration of Nos. 1 and 52 is shown in FIG. As shown in FIG. 3, the shift registers 51 and 52 are composed of a flip-flop circuit 54.

Next, an outline of a liquid ejection head, which is an example of a recording head on which the above-described recording head substrate is mounted, will be described. FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing the structure of a recording head on which the recording head substrate of this embodiment is mounted.

As shown in FIG. 4, a flow path wall member 401 for forming a flow path 405 for forming a liquid path 405 communicating with a plurality of ejection ports 400 and an ink supply port 403 in the recording head. And a top plate 402 having a. Here, the ink injected from the ink supply port 403 is stored in the internal common liquid chamber 404 and supplied to each liquid passage 405. In this state, the heating resistor 6 in the print head substrate 100 of the present embodiment is energized and driven according to print data, whereby ink is ejected from the ejection port 400 and printing is performed.

In the above description, the case where the top plate 402 and the flow path wall member 401 are composed of separate members has been described, but the top plate 402 and the flow path wall member 40 are described.
In some cases, 4 may be formed by one member integrally molded.

Next, an outline of a recording apparatus equipped with the above-described recording head will be described. FIG. 5 is a schematic perspective view of an inkjet recording apparatus 600 which is an example of a recording apparatus to which the recording head of the present invention can be attached and applied.

In FIG. 5, an ink jet head cartridge 601 is one in which the above-described recording head and an ink tank for holding ink to be supplied to the recording head are integrated. The inkjet head cartridge 601 is mounted on a carriage 607 that engages with a spiral groove 606 of a lead screw 605 that rotates via driving force transmission gears 603 and 604 in association with forward and reverse rotations of a drive motor 602. The drive motor 602 reciprocates the carriage 607 along the guide 608 in the directions of arrows a and b. Recording material P
Is conveyed on the platen roller 609 by a recording material conveying means (not shown), and is pressed against the platen roller 609 by the paper pressing plate 610 in the moving direction of the carriage 607.

In the vicinity of one end of the lead screw 605,
Photo couplers 611 and 612 are provided. These are home position detecting means for confirming the existence of the lever 607a of the carriage 607 in this area and switching the rotation direction of the drive motor 602 and the like.

The support member 613 supports the cap member 614 which covers the front surface (ejection port surface) of the above-mentioned ink jet head cartridge 601 where the ejection port is located.
The ink suction means 615 suctions the ink that has accumulated in the cap member 614 due to idle ejection from the inkjet head cartridge 601. The ink suction means 615 sucks and recovers the inkjet head cartridge 601 through the opening in the cap. Inkjet head cartridge 601
Cleaning blade 61 for wiping the discharge port surface of
The movable member 618 is movable in the front-rear direction (direction orthogonal to the moving direction of the carriage 607). The cleaning blade 617 and the moving member 618 are supported by the main body support 619. The cleaning blade 617 is not limited to this form and may be another known cleaning blade.

In the suction recovery operation of the recording head, the lever 620 for starting suction is the carriage 60.
The cam 621, which engages with 7, moves along with the movement of the cam 621, and the drive force from the drive motor 602 is movement-controlled by a known transmission means such as clutch switching. An inkjet recording control unit that gives a signal to a heating resistor provided in a recording head of the inkjet head cartridge 601 and controls drive of each mechanism described above is provided on the apparatus main body side. Not shown.

In the ink jet recording apparatus 600 having the above structure, the ink jet head cartridge 601 reciprocates over the entire width of the recording material P with respect to the recording material P conveyed on the platen roller 609 by the recording medium conveying means (not shown). Record while moving. Further, the inkjet recording apparatus 600 has a drive signal supply unit (not shown) that supplies a drive signal for ejecting ink from the recording head to the recording head.

In the above description, the case where a heating resistor for giving energy such as heat to the ink is used as the energy conversion element for converting the electric energy into the ejection energy for ejecting the ink has been described. The present invention can be similarly applied even when the piezo element is used as an energy conversion element for converting electric energy into ejection energy for ejecting ink.

Furthermore, in the above description, an example in which the element substrate, which is a semiconductor substrate, is adopted in an ink jet type recording head has been described, but the present invention can be similarly applied to, for example, a thermal head substrate. It is possible.

[0040]

As described above, according to the recording head substrate of the present invention, the following effects can be obtained.

(1) The first shift register to which the data of the odd-numbered bit of each bit of the image data, which is serial bit string data, is input, and the even-numbered of the data of each bit of the image data By providing two shift registers of the second shift register to which the data of 2 bits is input in the shift register section, the number of shifts of the shift register until the image data reaches all the bits of each shift register is reduced by half. be able to. Therefore, it is possible to shorten the time from the input of the image data to the ejection of the ink, thereby increasing the number of nozzles and increasing the speed of data transfer.

(2) Wiring for outputting the image data of each bit of the first shift register to the latch circuit,
Since the wirings for outputting the image data of each bit of the second shift register to the latch circuit are arranged alternately, the delay of the data transfer caused by the wiring impedance or the like is prevented. It is possible to make the image data uniform, and it is possible to meet the demands for increasing the number of nozzles and speeding up data transfer.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a circuit configuration of a driver formed on a printhead substrate according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an operation of a driver formed on a print head substrate according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a circuit diagram showing a circuit configuration of a shift register section of a driver formed on a print head substrate according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing a configuration of a recording head using the recording head substrate of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a schematic perspective view of an inkjet recording apparatus which is an example of a recording apparatus to which the recording head of the present invention can be attached and applied.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing a circuit configuration of a conventional print head substrate.

[Explanation of symbols]

2 Latch circuit 3 Enable circuit 4 AND circuit 5 power transistors 6 Heating resistor 10, 12 Shift register section 11,51,52 shift register 54 flip-flop circuit 100 Printhead substrate 401 Channel wall member 402 Top plate 403 Ink supply port 404 Common liquid chamber 405 liquid flow path 600 inkjet recording device 601 inkjet head cartridge 602 drive motor 603, 604 Driving force transmission gear 605 lead screw 606 spiral groove 607 carriage 607a lever 608 Guide 609 Braten roller 610 Paper holding plate 611, 612 Photo coupler 613 support member 614 Cap member 615 Ink suction means 617 cleaning blade 618 Moving member 619 Main body support 620 lever 621 cam

   ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued front page    (72) Inventor Yoshiyuki Nakama             3-30-2 Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo             Non non corporation (72) Inventor Mochizuki ego             3-30-2 Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo             Non non corporation (72) Inventor Teruo Ozaki             3-30-2 Shimomaruko, Ota-ku, Tokyo             Non non corporation F-term (reference) 2C056 EA01 EC07 EC37 FA10 HA51                       HA60                 2C066 AA01 AB03 AC13

Claims (7)

[Claims] 1. A plurality of energy conversion elements used for a recording head for printing on a recording medium, for converting electric energy into printing energy, and each energy conversion element provided for each energy conversion element. A power transistor for driving each element, a shift register unit for serially inputting image data of a bit string input bit by bit in synchronization with a clock of a predetermined frequency, and outputting the input image data of each bit in parallel A latch circuit that temporarily stores the image data of each bit output from the shift register unit and outputs the image data as a drive signal of each power transistor each time the image data is input to the shift register unit by a predetermined number of bits. In the substrate for a recording head in which is formed, the shift register unit includes the bit string The image data of the odd-numbered bit of the image data is input 1
Of the image data, and a second shift register to which the image data of the even-numbered bit of the image data is input. 2. Wirings for outputting the image data of each bit of the first shift register to the latch circuit, and for outputting the image data of each bit of the second shift register to the latch circuit. 2. The recording head substrate according to claim 1, wherein the wirings are arranged alternately. 3. The image data of the bit string is alternately input to the first shift register and the second shift register bit by bit at one of the falling edge and the falling edge of the clock. Alternatively, the recording head substrate according to the item 2. 4. The recording according to claim 1, wherein the first shift register and the second shift register alternately input the image data of the bit string bit by bit at a falling edge and a rising edge of the clock. Substrate for head. 5. A recording head on which the recording head substrate according to claim 1 is mounted. 6. The recording head according to claim 5, further comprising a member forming a plurality of ejection ports for ejecting a liquid and a plurality of liquid flow paths communicating with the ejection ports. 7. A recording head according to claim 5,
A recording apparatus comprising: a drive signal supply means for supplying a drive signal for driving the recording head to the recording head; and a recording medium conveying means for conveying a recording medium printed by the recording head.