JPH01206069A - High-speed thermal head - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable a printing at a speed approximately 2 times higher than that of the prior art, by a method wherein adjacent printing parts can be simultaneously heated by the amount of two lines so that the response of each heat generation part in temperature increase or decrease can be enhanced for realizing a high-speed thermal head. CONSTITUTION:One resistor serves as a first heat generation part 3, and the other resistor serves as a second heat generation part 4. An IC 10 for independently controlling the heat generation parts is disposed on each side of the heat generation parts. To supply an electric current to the first heat generation part, signal electrodes 5 and common electrodes 6 are alternately disposed to connect the resistor to the control IC 10. The wiring of the second heat generation part 4 is disposed similarly and symmetrically to that of the first heat generation part 3. The common electrodes 6 are connected to a positive power source, and the signal electrodes 5 are connected to a GND through the control IC 10. When the control IC 10 is turned ON to be actuated, an electric current flows through the connected signal electrode, thus heating the resistor part disposed between the common electrodes on both sides of the appropriate signal electrode to enable a printing.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Object of the Invention] (Industrial Application Field) The present invention relates to a thermal transfer type thermal head, which is used in high-speed printers, facsimile machines, etc.

It is used in thermal transfer type printing unit devices.

(Prior art) As a prior art related to the present invention, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 60-1926
There is a publication No. 58.

This is a thermal head having one resistor on one substrate, and as shown in FIG.
4, the signal electrode 43 is connected to a control IC,
The common electrode 44 has a structure that is integrated into a common conductor 45.

As described above, the conventional thermal head having only one heating resistor cannot achieve high printing speed.

As an improvement to this, there is a method in which a signal electrode and a common electrode are wired from both sides of the heating resistor and two heating resistors are installed, as shown in FIG.

That is, the common conductor 55 is arranged between the two heating resistors 52, and the -force signal electrode 53 is placed on the opposite side from the common electrode 54.
That is, the two heating resistors are connected from the outside to the heating resistor.

(Problem to be Solved by the Invention) However, the distance between the two inventive resistors in the thermal head with the above structure becomes a wide gap due to the presence of the common conductor 55, and if the gap widens, two consecutive lines There is a problem in that high-speed printing is difficult because minutes cannot be printed at the same time.

The technical object of the present invention is to develop a structure of a thermal transfer type thermal head that can print at a speed approximately twice as fast as that of a conventional thermal head.

[Structure of the invention]

(Means for solving the problem) The technical means taken to solve the above technical problem are as follows. In other words, in order to increase the speed of the thermal head, it is possible to generate heat for two lines at the same time in adjacent printing areas in order to speed up the response of temperature rise and cooling of each heat generating part, and it is possible to print on one board. It has a thermal head having two heating resistor lines, one set of heating resistor lines in which a common electrode and a signal electrode are wired from the same direction to the resistor, and another set of heating resistors having the same wiring. , wiring is line symmetrical to the heating resistor so that the distance between the lines of both the photothermal resistors is very narrow, the common electrodes and the signal electrodes are arranged alternately, and a resistor is formed above them at right angles to the electrodes, An insulating layer is continuously provided on the common electrodes and signal electrodes arranged alternately between the heating resistor and the signal control 1c, and the insulating layer located above the common electrode is insulated through a through hole. A common conductor provided on the layer and a common electrode are electrically connected, and a wiring is provided that leads the common conductor provided on the insulating layer to the outside.

(Operation) The technical means operates as follows. In other words, it can generate heat for two lines of adjacent printing parts at the same time.The common electrode is connected to the positive power supply, the signal electrode is connected to GND via the control IC, and the control IC is activated to the ON state. Then, a current flows through the connected signal electrodes, and the resistor portions sandwiched between the common electrodes on both sides of the signal electrodes generate heat, allowing printing.

(Example) Examples will be described below.

In Example 1 shown in FIG. 1, 1 is an alumina substrate with a glaze layer 2, and a resistor is formed over two lines.

One resistor is the first heat generating part 3, the other resistor is the second heat generating part 4, and an ICl is used to independently control each heat generating part.
0 are placed on both sides of the heat generating part.

In order to supply current to the first heat generating section, signal electrodes 5 and common electrodes 6 are arranged alternately and connect the resistor to the control IC. Similarly, the wiring of the second heat generating part 4 is connected to the first heat generating part 3.
and are placed on the target.

The resistors of the first heat generating part and the second heat generating part are made of TaN and Ni.
Sputtered film or vapor deposited film such as CrSi, or RuO2
It is a thick film resistor whose main component is

The conductive material of the signal electrode 5 and the common electrode 6 is Au.

A wiring pattern is formed by photoetching a gold film formed by printing and baking a sputtered film such as Ae, a thick film conductor mainly composed of gold powder, or an organic gold solution, and a wiring pattern with a line width of 20 μm. , with a pinch of 62.5 μm.

The signal electrode 5 is wired to the vicinity of ICl0, which controls 0N10FF of the current to the heat generating part, and is wire-bonded to the IC using a gold wire 11.

The common electrode 6 needs to be electrically connected to the common conductor 7. Therefore, an insulating layer 8 made of glass is provided on the signal electrode 5, a common conductor 7 is placed on top of the insulating layer 8, and a common electrode 6 extends to the bottom of the insulating layer and a hole (pier hole) 9 provided in the insulating layer. connected to the upper common conductor through.

Next, a glass coating 12 is applied to protect the heat generating part, and a gel coating 13 is applied to protect the tC and wire bond parts.

The thermal head configured as described above operates as follows.

Connect the common electrode 6 to the positive power supply, and connect the signal electrode 5 to the control I
Connected to GND via Cl0.

When the control ICl0 is turned ON, a current flows through the connected signal electrodes, and the resistor portion sandwiched between the common electrodes on both sides of the signal electrodes generates heat, allowing printing.

FIG. 3 shows Example 2. In Example 1, a common conductor with a common electrode connected between the heat generating part and the control IC was arranged, but in Example 2, an insulating layer 8 was placed under the control IC10, and A common conductor 7 is placed below it, and the other structure and operation are the same as in the first embodiment.

〔Effect of the invention〕

The present invention has the following effects. In other words, since the distance between the two heating resistors is very narrow and adjacent lines can be printed simultaneously, printing can be done at twice the speed with a very simple circuit.

The thermal head of the present invention simply repeats the operation of printing two lines at the same time, feeding the paper for two lines, and then printing two lines at the same time. If the intervals are far apart, the operation becomes very complicated.

That is, if the distance between the two heating resistors is n dots apart, the first line and the (n+1) line are printed at the first time, and the paper is fed by one line. Next, the second line and (n+2) line are printed, this is repeated, the nth line and the 2nth line are printed, the paper is fed by one line, and the process is repeated from the beginning.

This type of operation requires complicated circuits such as the motor for feeding the paper and the memory that stores data for n rows, making it impractical, but the structure of the present invention is that the heating resistors for two rows are close together, so one platen is used. However, in contrast, in the conventional type, two platens or a large-sized platen are required for heads with a wide spacing.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a plan view of this embodiment, Fig. 2 is a sectional view taken along line AA in Fig. 1, Fig. 3 is a plan view of another embodiment, and Fig. 4 is a sectional view taken along line B-8 in Fig. 3. , 5 and 6 are partially omitted plan views of the conventional example. l...Substrate, 3.4...Heating resistor 55...Signal electrode, 6...Common electrode.

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) A thermal head that has two heating resistor lines on one substrate, one set of heating resistor lines in which the common electrode and signal electrode are wired from the same direction to the resistor, and another set of identical heating resistor lines. A high-speed thermal head in which a heating resistor having wiring is wired symmetrically with the heating resistor to form lines between the heating resistors at a very narrow interval. (2) A high-speed thermal head according to claim (1), wherein the common electrodes and the signal electrodes are arranged alternately, and a resistor is formed on the common electrodes and the signal electrodes at right angles to the electrodes.