Applied Materials, Inc.

Janusz Jozwiak

Quanyuan Shang

John M White

Shinichi Kurita

Hongbin Ji

Bassam Shamoun

Inchen Huang

Eugene Mirro

Fan Cheung Sze

Emanual Beer

Suhail Anwar

William Allan Bagley

Paohuei Lee

The invention provides methods, systems, and drivers for controlling an inkjet printing system. The driver may include logic including a processor, memory coupled to the logic, and a fire pulse generator circuit coupled to the logic. The fire pulse generator may include a connector to facilitate coupling the driver to a print head. The fire pulse generator circuit may also include a fixed current source circuit adapted to generate a fire pulse with a constant slew rate that facilitates easy adjustment of ink drop size. The logic is adapted to receive an image and to convert the image to an image data file. The image data file is adapted to be used by the driver to trigger the print head to deposit ink into pixel wells on a substrate as the substrate is moved in a print direction. Numerous other aspects are disclosed.

Methods and apparatus for a high resolution inkjet fire pulse generator

In a first aspect, a first apparatus is provided for inkjet printing. The first apparatus includes an inkjet head support that includes a plurality of inkjet heads. A first inkjet head of the plurality of inkjet heads is adapted to be independently moveable in both directions along a lateral axis relative to a second inkjet head of the plurality of inkjet heads. The first apparatus also includes a system controller adapted to control an independent lateral movement of the first inkjet head relative to the second inkjet head. Numerous other aspects are provided.

Apparatus and methods for an inkjet head support having an inkjet head capable of independent lateral movement

Methods and apparatus for inkjet inkjet drop positioning are provided. A first method includes determining an intended deposition location of an ink drop on a substrate, depositing the ink drop on the substrate using an inkjet printing system, detecting a deposited location of the deposited ink drop on the substrate, comparing the deposited location to the intended location, determining a difference between the deposited location and the intended location, and compensating for the difference between the deposited location and the intended location by adjusting a parameter of an inkjet printing system. Numerous other aspects are provided.

Methods and systems for inkjet drop positioning

Systems, methods, and apparatus are provided for including a chip embedded in components of electronic device manufacturing systems adapted to sense, store, and/or update at least one of identification, operational-related and process-related information associated with the components. In other aspects of the invention, a processing chamber component having an embedded chip with storage capacity is adapted to record at least one of identification, operational-related and process-related information associated with the component; and to communicate the information from the chip to enable determination of an operational state of the component. Numerous other aspects are disclosed.

Electronic device manufacturing component with an embedded chip and methods of using the same

In a first aspect, a system is provided. The system includes (1) a stage adapted to move a substrate relative to print heads during printing; (2) at least one print head suspended from a support above the stage and adapted to be moveable in a plane above the stage; (3) a controller operable to rotate the print head about a center of the print head; and (4) an imaging system adapted to capture an image of the print head and to determine a center point of the print head based upon images of the print head captured as the print head is rotated. Numerous other aspects are provided.

Methods and apparatus for aligning print heads

The present invention provides methods and apparatus for controlling the quantity of fluid output (e.g., drop size) by individual nozzles of a print head to a very high precision at a frequency equal to the frequency at which fluid is normally dispensed. This is achieved by mapping fluid quantity control information into the data that represents the image to be printed. Data representative of an image is received and converted into pixel data. In at least one embodiment, the pixel data includes pixels represented by N bits, and the N bits may represent a drop size for the pixel and a union of the N bits may represent a nozzle status. A print head may be controlled based on the pixel data, and the print head may include nozzles that are each adapted to deposit at least one drop size quantity of a fluid on a substrate.

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San Ramon, CA, United States of America

Janusz Jozwiak