The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 15, 2002
Filed:
Oct. 14, 1999
Hiroshi Nou, Kawasaki, JP;
Fujitsu Limited, Kawasaki, JP;
Abstract
It is an exemplified object of the present invention is to provide an inkjet printer having a head drive circuit that can generate a less distorted drive waveform stably using a smaller-size and smaller-capacitance transistor than the conventional. An inkjet head of the present invention comprises a head which includes a plurality of piezoelectric elements and may jet ink using the piezoelectric elements, a carriage which has the head and moves with the head, and a one-chip head drive circuit, provided in the carriage, which receives a control signal and a drive signal for driving the piezoelectric elements, and drives the head, wherein the head drive circuit includes a plurality of selection parts, connected to each of the piezoelectric elements, which may receive the drive signal, a control part, coupled to the selection parts, which controls the selection parts based on the control signal, and selects a piezoelectric element to be driven from among the piezoelectric elements, and a plurality of current amplifier parts, provided in every selection part and piezoelectric element, which amplify the drive signal to be supplied to the piezoelectric element to be driven. The current amplifier part in the head drive circuit is provided for each piezoelectric element without requiring a large-size transistor seen in the prior art.