Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

O-hyun Baek

Jae-ho Moon

Jeong-Seon Kim

Jae-cheol Lee

Young-Su Lee

Dae-soon Lim

Moo-Youl Kim

Sik-sun Choi

Masahiko Habuka

Jong-suk Seo

An inkjet image forming system and method of increasing a printing speed thereof. According to the system and method, at least a portion of a first lead time of a first process that includes processing printing data in a host and transmitting the printing data to an inkjet image forming apparatus is overlapped with at least a portion of a second lead time of a second process that includes performing a maintenance operation on a printhead using a maintenance unit, thereby increasing the printing speed of the inkjet image forming system.

Inkjet image forming system and method of increasing a printing speed thereof

A bubble-jet type ink-jet printhead is provided. When forming a doughnut-shaped bubble, the printhead allows bubbles to be first grown around the heater that surrounds the central axis of the nozzle at regular angles followed by the formation of another bubble between the earlier formed bubbles, thereby forming a larger doughnut-shaped bubble. Accordingly, this can prevent the formation of an unbalanced doughnut-shaped bubble due to variations in local resistance of the heater, which may be caused by a process error. Furthermore, the printhead allows the center of the doughnut-shaped bubble to be set on the central axis of the nozzle thus causing a droplet formed within the doughnut-shaped bubble to be ejected in a normal manner, that is, in a direction vertical to the nozzle plate.

Bubble-jet type ink-jet printhead

A bubble-jet type ink-jet printhead is provided. The ink-jet printhead includes: a substrate; a nozzle plate including a plurality of nozzles, which is separated a predetermined space from the substrate; walls for closing the space between the substrate and the nozzle plate and then forming a common chamber between the substrate and the nozzle plate; a plurality of resistive layers, formed on the substrate within the common chamber corresponding to the plurality of nozzles, each resistive layer encircling the central axis passing through the center of each nozzle; a plurality of pairs of wiring layers formed on the substrate, each pair of wiring layers being connecting to each resistive layer and extending to the outside of the common chamber; and a plurality of pads which are disposed at the outside of the common chamber on the substrate and electrically connected to the wiring layers. The printhead is constructed such that the space between the nozzle plate and the substrate forms a common chamber and there is no ink channel having a complicated structure, thereby significantly suppressing clogging of nozzles by foreign materials or solidified ink. The printhead is easy to design and manufacture due to its simple structure, thereby significantly reducing the manufacturing cost. In particular, its simple structure permits flexibility in selecting a wide range of alternative designs and thus patterns in which the nozzles are arranged. Furthermore, the printhead can be manufactured by a fabrication process for a typical semiconductor device, thereby facilitating high volume production.

An ink cartridge including an ink storage chamber in which ink is stored, a cover to cover the upper portion of the ink storage chamber and a head to eject ink droplets in the ink storage chamber onto a recording medium, wherein the cover includes an inner cover to cover the upper portion of the ink storage chamber and an outer cover that seals the ink storage chamber and the inner cover, and is positioned at a predetermined distance above the inner cover. Also provided are plates to form zigzag air passages by blocking a space between the inner cover and the outer cover. With the ink cartridge according to the present invention, it is possible to satisfactorily suppress the backward flow of ink contained in an ink storage chamber due to overheating of or careless treatment of the ink cartridge. Even if ink flows backward from the ink storage chamber, it is stored in an ink storage space, thus preventing the clogging of an air passage. Further, air entering the ink storage space is filtered, passing through the air passage, and additional components are not required to seal up an opening to which ink is supplied. For this reason, manufacturing costs can be reduced and a manufacturing process can be simplified.

Growing community of inventors

Seoul, South Korea

O-hyun Baek