Low-cost and high speed monitoring system for a multi-nozzle piezo inkjet head

Abstract

Inkjet technology has recently emerged as one of the most powerful patterning tools for manufacturing electronic devices. For inkjet technology to be a reliable patterning tool, the jetting status of inkjet dispensers needs to be monitored in order to detect jetting failures. We propose a new monitoring system that can show, within 2 s, the jetting status of a piezo driven inkjet head with 128 nozzles. For this purpose, a low cost monitoring module that can measure the piezo self-sensing signals was developed. The module consists of a detection circuit and a data acquisition (DAQ) system which can easily be integrated into existing printing systems. In addition, a software algorithm is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method when it is applied to inkjet-based manufacturing systems. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.