This application claims the benefits of the China Patent Application Serial Number 201010503669.4, filed on Sep. 30, 2010, the subject matter of which is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a chip, especially to an ink jet chip.
2. Description of Related Art
With the penetration of the personal computer and the continuous development of the industrial technology, printing device has been the indispensable product for industry use, or for the periphery of the personal computer in a family. The use's requirement on the efficiency, functionality and precision of the printing device has also been gradually increased. They hope the printing device can provide both high quality and high-speed printing, while having a minimum total volume at the same time.
For providing multi-color printing, a plurality of ink cartridges must be installed on the carriage of a conventional printing device. As a result, the lateral volume of the carriage must be increased with the volume of the plurality of ink cartridges. Moreover, the moving distance of the carriage in the printing device is elongated, while the receiving space at the interior of the printing device is also raised. Both of them are opposite to the miniaturizing trend of the nowadays-electronic device.
In addition, for raising the printing speed and the printing quality, an ink-jet element must be installed on the ink-jet head of a conventional ink cartridge. Please refer to
Therefore, it is desirable to provide an improved ink-jet chip to mitigate and/or obviate the aforementioned drawbacks, which is also capable of controlling the largest number of ink-jet elements with the lowest number of control contacts, for reducing the manufacturing cost and the volume of the ink-jet chip.
The main object of the present invention to provide an ink-jet chip, capable of obviating the drawbacks that the volume of the conventional ink-jet chip enlarges along with the increasing in the number of the control contacts thereof, resulting in the increasing of the volume of an ink-jet cartridge, the raising of the manufacturing cost of thereof, and the interference between the different wires thereof.
The other object of the present invention to provide an ink jet chip, capable of controlling the largest number of ink-jet elements with the lowest number of control contacts, for reducing the manufacturing cost and the volume of the ink-jet chip, and further reducing the volume of the ink-jet cartridge.
To achieve the object, in a broader type of the present invention, an ink-jet chip is provided, adaptive for a printing device, at least comprising: a plurality of ink-jet heating elements; and an ink-jet signal generating circuit. The ink-jet signal generating circuit at least includes: a counter electrically connected with the printing device, for receiving a counter control signal and a pulse signal outputted from the printing device, and generating a plurality of counter signals corresponding to the counter control signal and the pulse signal; and a decoder electrically connected with the counter, for receiving and decoding the plurality of counter signals, for generating a plurality of address signals, and selecting a corresponding ink-jet heating element basing on the plurality of address signals.
Other objects, advantages, and novel features of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. The description and the drawing in the specification of the present invention are essentially used for explanation only; they are not supposed to be used for limiting the scope of the present invention.
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Besides, the counter 221 could be electrically connected with the printing device 3, for receiving a counter control signal CT and a pulse signal CLK outputted from the printing device 3, and generating a plurality of counter signals corresponding to the counter control signal CT and the pulse signal CLK. The decoder 222 could be electrically connected with the counter 221, for receiving and decoding the plurality of counter signals, for generating a plurality of address signals A1-An, and selecting a corresponding ink-jet heating element 21 basing on the plurality of address signals A1-An. Once the corresponding ink-jet heating element 21 is selected, the execution or the not-execution of a printing job is determined according to the image data P.
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Wherein, the decoder 222 could comprise AND gate, OR gate, NOT gate, NAND gate, NOR gate, XOR gate, XNOR gate, or the group consisting thereof.
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Of course, when the time is in the time period T16, the decoder 222 selects the corresponding ink-jet heating element 21 corresponding to the address signal A1. However, at this time, the counter signals A, B, C, D are all in the disable status, making the binary value represented by them to be 0000. As a result, the first counter control signal C1 is switched to the enable status and the second counter control signal C2 is switched to the disable status, making the counter 221 to be switched to the function of counting up. When the time is in the time periods T17-T31, the counter 221 increases the binary value represented by the counter signals A, B, C, D in these time periods, respectively, making the disable/enable status of the counter signals A, B, C, D in these time periods to be the same as the disable/enable status of the counter signals A, B, C, D when the time is in the corresponding time periods T15-T1. In other words, in these time periods T17-T31, the binary value represented by the counter signals A, B, C, D is the same as the binary value represented by the counter signals A, B, C, D in the corresponding time periods T15-T1. Therefore, the same ink-jet heating element 21 will selected in these time periods T17-T31, and in the corresponding time periods T15-T1. As clearly shown in this embodiment, through the ink-jet signal generating circuit 22, the ink-jet chip 2 of the present invention can control 16 ink-jet heating elements 21, merely by electrically connecting with the 3 contacts of the printing device 3, and transmitting the first counter control signal C1, the second counter control signal C2, and the pulse signal CCK through these 3 contacts.
As described above, the ink-jet chip of the present invention achieves the objects of controlling the largest number of ink-jet elements with the lowest number of control contacts, for reducing the manufacturing cost and the volume of the ink-jet chip, and further reducing the volume of the ink-jet cartridge, by means of making the counter of the ink-jet signal to generate circuit thereof generating a plurality of counter signals corresponding to the counter control signals and the pulse signals it received, and making the decoder to decode the plurality of counter signals for generating a plurality of address signals. As a result, the ink-jet chip of the present invention already has the industrial applicability as required by the patent law.
Although the present invention has been explained in relation to its preferred embodiment, it is to be understood that many other possible modifications and variations can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as hereinafter claimed.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2010 1 0503669 | Sep 2010 | CN | national |
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
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5621440 | Takahashi | Apr 1997 | A |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20120081471 A1 | Apr 2012 | US |