JP4136479B2 - Liquid ejection apparatus and liquid ejection method - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention records and manages defective nozzle information of a solution discharge portion of a liquid discharge apparatus using an ink jet method, does not print using a defective nozzle, and holds a defective nozzle (hereinafter referred to as “head”). It is related with the apparatus and medium which can be printed normally even if it is used.
[0002]
[Prior art]
In the ink jet apparatus, if there is non-ejection (printing failure), the recovery (cleaning) process is repeated several times to fix the solution, remove the contaminated part, print again, and if printing failure is found, the head is defective. As a general method, the system can be replaced with a new one, or a normal nozzle can be used for printing instead of a nozzle that causes non-ejection (printing failure). Therefore, a preliminary print test must be performed to check the head before printing for each print operation. Depending on the non-ejection situation, print data should be created so that a substitute nozzle is used instead of a defective nozzle. It was pointed out that the printing efficiency was poor because it was necessary to correct it.
[0003]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
An object of the present invention is to eliminate the complexity of performing preliminary ejection inspection for each printing operation, and further, when there is a nozzle with defective ejection, formation of a desired image on a medium without using it. It is an object of the present invention to provide a liquid ejection apparatus and a liquid ejection method that can perform the above-described process.
[0004]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
A liquid ejection apparatus according to the present invention is a liquid ejection apparatus for manufacturing a probe array arranged by ejecting liquid droplets including different probes at different positions on a substrate,
The liquid ejection apparatus includes a multi-nozzle head having an ejection surface in which a plurality of nozzles capable of ejecting droplets including different probes are arranged in a matrix;
Reading means for reading the information from a memory for storing information on the matrix positions of the defective nozzles of the multi-nozzle head in order to identify the location of the corresponding defective nozzles before discharging droplets onto the substrate;
Means for forming a drawn image excluding discharge from the defective nozzle based on the matrix position of the defective nozzle read by the reading means;
Based on the matrix position of the defective nozzle read by the reading means, an alternative nozzle that substitutes for the defective nozzle is designated at an undischarged position in the drawing image, and the droplet is supplied from the nozzle to the supply position of the defective nozzle. Means for controlling the second drawing to supply
It is characterized by having.
[0005]
A liquid discharge method according to the present invention is a liquid discharge method for manufacturing a probe array in which droplets containing different probes are respectively discharged at different positions on a substrate,
In order to identify the location of a defective nozzle before discharging a droplet onto a substrate, a multi-nozzle head having a discharge surface in which a plurality of nozzles that can discharge droplets including different probes are arranged in a matrix, Reading means for reading the information from the memory for storing the information on the matrix position of the defective nozzle of the multi-nozzle head,
Forming a drawn image excluding discharge from the defective nozzle based on the matrix position of the defective nozzle read by the reading means;
Based on the matrix position of the defective nozzle read by the reading means, an alternative nozzle that substitutes for the defective nozzle is designated at an undischarged position in the drawing image, and the droplet is supplied from the nozzle to the supply position of the defective nozzle. A second drawing process for supplying
It is characterized by having.
[0006]
The nonvolatile storage means having a memory is incorporated in the head, the manufacturing apparatus main body of the liquid ejection device, or the control device, and can be updated at any time, and can be managed and changed in units of heads. preferable. In addition, the memory of the nonvolatile storage means can further record the position of the nozzle, the availability of the nozzle, and the presence or absence of an alternative nozzle, and the information recorded in the nonvolatile memory is a test printing process at the time of head inspection. And can be obtained by executing a discharge performance test of each nozzle.
[0007]
In the present invention, test printing is stopped before printing every time in order to inspect the performance of the head as in the conventional method, and when a defective nozzle is identified, the information is used for the next printing. Depending on the heads used, defective nozzles are already held at the time of shipment, and use is possible if a nozzle instead of the defective nozzle (hereinafter referred to as alternative nozzle) is used, but on the other hand, preliminary test printing is performed each time. In this case, labor and cost for regenerating print data are generated, and such a process is a problem that cannot be ignored. The present invention solves this problem.
[0008]
One aspect of the present invention is that the nozzle information of a head that causes a printing defect in an ink jet type liquid ejecting apparatus is stored in a non-volatile memory such as an EEPROM in the head, in the liquid ejecting apparatus main body, or in a control device that can be configured by a PC. It is characterized by storing the performance evaluation information of the individual nozzles stored and examined in the nozzle inspection process at the time of shipment of the head.
[0009]
In another aspect of the present invention, the head to be mounted on the liquid ejection apparatus has a means for evaluating the performance of each head, and has a step of always inspecting the head before shipment. For example, in the case of a multi-nozzle head, the liquid ejection apparatus of the present invention has means for determining whether or not printing is good for each nozzle and storing all the information in the EEPROM. The PC that sends the data and generates the control code has a means to confirm the EEPROM nozzle performance evaluation information, and before printing, uses the defective nozzle from the AND information of the mask image generated from the nozzle failure information and the image to be printed. The first image generation means, the second image generation means for bit-shifting the masked image so as not to use the defective nozzle, and the print start position corresponding to the shifted pitch as the print control code. A liquid ejecting apparatus is characterized in that the first image and the second image are superimposed and printed from the control code correcting means for correcting.
[0010]
Non-volatile memory (EEPROM) shall be in the head or liquid ejecting device main body or personal computer (PC), and in order to record head-specific information, the information will always be that of the mounted head It also has an identification means. Normally, it is natural to install an EEPROM in the head and have a means to always take in information specific to the head by communicating with the PC / liquid ejection device side, but by attaching an identifier to the head and placing the EEPROM in a different place from the head Any method can be used as long as it can be provided and the correspondence can be combined.
[0011]
Hereinafter, an ink jet type liquid ejection apparatus suitable for use in the present invention will be described.
[0012]
(Inkjet liquid ejection device)
FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a liquid ejection apparatus for realizing an embodiment of the present invention.
[0013]
The liquid ejection apparatus main body 100 includes a reservoir 102 for ejecting a solution as a supply system, a head 101 for ejecting the solution, and a stage 106 for fixing a medium (not shown) for fixing the ejected droplets. The system made it possible to drive the ejection head 101 to the left and right along the guard rail 104, and to drive the stage 106 back and forth along the guard rail 105. Information on the stage drive pitch, speed, and ejection start position is transmitted and received by a cable 103 connected to a PC as a control device. The solution supply system may be directly injected into the reservoir 102 using a syringe or the like (not shown), or may be aspirated by attaching a detachable tank (not shown) to the discharge head, which is not essential to the present invention.
[0014]
FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of a nozzle (ejection unit) that ejects droplets.
[0015]
FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional structure diagram in which one of ejection ports (nozzles) on a liquid ejection surface of a head is enlarged. Surrounded by a glass substrate 200, a silicon substrate 201, and the like, a reservoir 202 that supplies a solution, a supply port 203 that supplies the solution to the nozzle, a flow path 204 that guides the solution to the nozzle, and a nozzle that is a discharge site include A droplet 206 flying by a heater 207 for heating the solution and a bubble 205 generated by overheating is illustrated. The heater is covered and protected by a heat storage layer 209 and a protective film 208.
[0016]
This includes a means (for example, an electrothermal converter or a laser beam) that generates thermal energy as energy used for ink ejection, particularly in an ink jet recording system, and changes in the state of ink due to the thermal energy. By using a method for generating the recording, it is possible to achieve higher recording density and higher definition.
[0017]
As its typical configuration and principle, for example, those performed using the basic principle disclosed in US Pat. Nos. 4,723,129 and 4740796 are preferable. This method can be applied to both a so-called on-demand type and a continuous type. In particular, in the case of the on-demand type, it is arranged corresponding to a sheet or a liquid path holding a solution. By applying at least one drive signal corresponding to the recorded information and giving a rapid temperature rise exceeding the nucleate boiling to the electrothermal transducer, heat energy is generated in the electrothermal transducer, and the heat acting surface of the head This is effective because film boiling can be caused to occur, and as a result, bubbles in the solution corresponding to the drive signal can be formed on a one-to-one basis.
[0018]
By the growth and contraction of the bubbles, the solution is ejected through the ejection opening to form at least one droplet. It is more preferable that the driving signal has a pulse shape, since the bubble growth and contraction are performed immediately and appropriately, and thus it is possible to achieve discharge of a droplet with particularly excellent responsiveness.
[0019]
As this pulse-shaped drive signal, those described in US Pat. Nos. 4,463,359 and 4,434,262 are suitable. Further excellent recording can be performed by employing the conditions described in US Pat. No. 4,313,124 of the invention relating to the temperature rise rate of the heat acting surface.
[0020]
In the above embodiment, a serial type ink jet printer, particularly an electrothermal transducer (heater) has been described as an example. However, the present invention can perform recording according to other methods as long as the recording head can be replaced. The present invention can be widely applied to recording apparatuses.
[0021]
FIG. 3 is a block diagram that functions in the present invention. The liquid ejection device consists of PC315, PCIBOX300, PC area including interface (not shown) and control software (not shown), cartridge motor driver 301, stage motor driver 304, relay area including head relay PCB302 and power supply system, and liquid ejection The apparatus main body area is composed of a cartridge 310 which is an apparatus main body and a surface plate 314 on which a stage is mounted. The cartridge 310 includes a head 308, an adapter PCB 307 for each head, a linear motor 306 that drives the cartridge, an encoder 305, and a nonvolatile memory (EEPROM) 309 that is a main part of the present invention. A stage 311 is mounted, and there is a linear motor 312 and an encoder 313 that drive the stage.
[0022]
(Non-volatile memory that records printing head failure information)
A non-volatile memory (hereinafter referred to as EEPROM) is installed in the internal circuit of the ejection head, and parameters related to the ejection performance of the head are stored in the memory and recorded at the time of shipment of the head so that optimum performance can be implemented. . Here, information for designating the nozzle location corresponding to the ejection failure location is stored in this empty area of the EEPROM so that the information can be provided to the control program so as not to use the defective nozzle. For example, in the case of a 1024 nozzle head, if there is a 128-byte free area in the EEPROM, the ejection normal bit 1 and ejection failure 0 can be recorded.
[0023]
FIG. 4 is a memory diagram of the EEPROM. This is a memory of 2k bytes in all sizes, with addresses in hexadecimal notation at 0x10 byte intervals at the left end of the table and the first digit of the address at the upper end of the table. The parameters relating to the head characteristic data are recorded at addresses 0 to 0x77F, the nozzle information of the ejection failure location, and the parameters relating to nozzle evaluation data are recorded at addresses 0x780 to 0x800. Record normal / abnormal nozzles at 1/0 of a bit. In FIG. 4, it is recorded by 0xFF that all the nozzles are normal.
[0024]
【Example】
In this embodiment, the microarray manufacturing apparatus that discharges and fixes a probe to a quartz glass substrate follows the spotting method of a probe to a solid phase described in JP-A-11-187900. The head is a multi-nozzle head capable of discharging 1024 nozzles and 1024 liquid types having different liquid types in units of discharge ejection ports (nozzles). FIG. 5 is a plan view on the side of an injection port (nozzle) 501 of a matrix nozzle head of 32 rows × 32 columns, and a solution supply unit to each nozzle is a solution storage tank (reservoir) or a detachable tank. Not set on the opposite side. On the ejection surface 500 on the ejection port (nozzle) 501 side, 1024 fine ejection ports (nozzles) 501 are arranged in a matrix. Considering the two-dimensional axis of XY as shown in Fig. 5, the coordinates of each nozzle (nozzle) are described as (X, Y).
[0025]
The electronic circuit of the head is equipped with an EEPROM that records the characteristic data of the head, and the data is divided as shown in FIG. 4, and an area for recording the presence or absence of ejection failure at the ejection nozzles (nozzles) is provided. Yes. Here, the matrix of discharge injection nozzles (nozzles) in FIG. 5 is (0,0) (1,0) (2,0) ... (0,1) (1,1) ... (29,31) Record in the order of (30, 31) (31, 31) at addresses 0x780 to 0x800 in the EEPROM area in Fig. 4. However, the order and configuration of recording are not limited to specific ones, and any method can be used as long as there is a one-to-one correspondence.
[0026]
The head characteristic data is usually investigated during the performance test during head inspection and recorded in the EEPROM, but the defect information of the droplet ejecting section is inspected for 1024 nozzles at this time and ejects the droplet. The bits of the part not to be masked are set to 0 and recorded at a predetermined EEPROM address.
[0027]
The performance required as a head used for liquid ejection in a microarray manufacturing apparatus is to eject probe spots at high density and high quality (high accuracy) and fix them to the substrate. One type of probe is fixed per spot. The fact that the corresponding nozzle in the above is defective in ejection means that a defective microarray medium is produced even if it is one spot. In other words, depending on the number of spots of the probes constituting the microarray, the spot arrangement, and the spot resolution, it has been necessary to change the nozzle after the discharge failure inspection of the corresponding nozzle or to replace the head itself. This leads to efficiency loss in the microarray manufacturing process, causing time loss such as redoing the inspection process to deal with nozzle defects, changing drawing data, replacing the head, etc. Also, in terms of cost, the amount of ejection solution used, high quality This was the main factor in the increase in head production and labor costs.
[0028]
The present invention is intended to produce a microarray medium in which a desired probe is spotted at a desired position at a desired resolution and with a high quality even with an ejection head having a very small number of nozzle defects. With respect to the ejection performance of all the ejection ports (nozzles), those capable of ejecting liquid droplets and those that cannot be ejected are selected, and data is stored in the EEPROM in the electronic circuit section of the ejection head. FIG. 6 is a flowchart of a discharge performance test at the time of pickup inspection of the discharge head. Reference numeral 6-1 denotes a process for mounting a new ejection head and initializing the liquid ejection apparatus, which includes preprocessing for loading a characteristic parameter unique to the head and optimizing drawing with the head. In 6-2, a pattern for inspecting the ejection performance is transferred from the drawing data generation / transfer apparatus (normal PC), and the ejection test is performed for all 1024 nozzles (32 rows × 32 columns matrix). The solution used at this time is preferably equivalent to that for this printing, but if it is expensive, it may be an inexpensive alternative solution having the same physical properties such as viscosity, surface tension, and PH. By shifting the 32 × 32 matrix head of 1024 nozzles configured as shown in FIG. 5 at a pitch of 100 μm in the XY direction, printing is repeated a plurality of times per nozzle, and the difference in a plurality of events can be seen. The medium to which the droplets are ejected and the apparatus and method for scanning the results are not intended to limit the present invention. 6-3 is a process for writing the evaluation result of the ejection nozzles in the EEPROM of the head.
[0029]
FIG. 7 is a simplified diagram of a drawing medium showing the drawing results of the aforementioned discharge performance test. The upper diagram shows the result of discharging all nozzles to the medium 700 only once by the head of 1024 nozzles. The number of spots is 1024 and the pitch is 1.6 mm, which is the pitch of the ejection ports (nozzles). This is slid in the XY directions every 100 μm and drawn 16 times. When enlarged as shown in the figure below, 16 × 16 100 μm pitch spots can be observed at the same injection port (nozzle). When all these 256 spots are ejected normally, 1 is set to the bit of the address corresponding to the EEPROM as a normal ejection nozzle, and when the defective spot is included, the bit of the corresponding address is set to 0.
[0030]
FIG. 8 is a simplified diagram clearly showing the correspondence between the EEPROM area into which the ejection nozzle evaluation result of the head is written and the corresponding ejection port (nozzle). The relevant bit that can be determined as a defective nozzle is set to 0. Here (1,27), (1,28), (1,30), (2,28), (5,1), (6,3), (7,3), (29,28) , (30,0), (30,1), (30,28), (31,1) are determined to be defective nozzles, and 0 is assigned to the corresponding EEPROM address as shown in the table below. A value has been written.
[0031]
FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing a drawing process for discharging droplets in the microarray manufacturing apparatus. In 9-1, the glass substrate for manufacturing a microarray to be manufactured is placed on a stage of a drawing apparatus, and a solution to be discharged is injected into a supply tank. Reference numeral 9-2 denotes a process for executing a communication protocol between the PC for generating a control code for instructing drawing and the EEPROM. 9-3 is a branching process that calls each mask image generation program depending on the presence or absence of a defective nozzle. 9-4 is a process of creating a mask image using the ejection performance data of the head acquired by the PC. Reference numeral 9-5 denotes a process of creating a mask image of all 1 bits (an image not masked) when there is no ejection failure nozzle. 9-6 is a process of creating the maximum image pattern that can be normally drawn with the head for the first time by ANDing the mask image created in 9-4 and 9-5 and the main image to be drawn. It is. 9-7 is a process of shifting the mask image bit by bit in the XY direction. 9-8 is a pattern that does not match the defective nozzle by ORing with the original mask image. In 9-9, the OR result is all 1 Shows the process of searching until. 9-10 is a process in which the created final shift image is bit-reversed so that only the undischarged image can be discharged for the second time by the alternative nozzle. 9-11 is a process of changing the drawing start position by a pitch corresponding to the shift of the image pattern created in 9-10 in the process of drawing the image pattern created in 9-6. 9-13 is a process in which the remaining image pattern created in 9-10 is overlaid on one image in the second drawing by changing the drawing control code changed in 9-12. Reference numeral 9-14 denotes a process that completes the drawing and transmits the post-process of the liquid ejection apparatus and the completion of the drawing to the PC, thereby ending the transfer of the image data.
[0032]
As described above, it is not necessary to perform nozzle inspection each time drawing is performed by investigating the ejection failure of the ejection port (nozzle) of the head of the liquid ejection device using a test pattern and recording it in the EEPROM. Thus, the consumption of the solution can be reduced and the manufacturing process of the medium can be shortened. In particular, in the case of a multi-nozzle head with different solutions to be supplied for each nozzle, it is impractical and costly to produce all nozzles without defects. Therefore, in the case of a head having many unused nozzles, supply to defective nozzles. Supplying the planned solution to other surplus nozzles, masking the original image with defective nozzle information of individual heads, and dividing them into a plurality of frames also improves the productivity of the heads.
[0033]
【The invention's effect】
In a liquid ejection device, in a multi-nozzle head that holds an ejection port (nozzle) that causes partial ejection failure, position information that identifies a defective portion is recorded in advance in a nonvolatile memory (EEPROM). From this nozzle discharge failure information, the drawing data using the nozzles (nozzles) that can be used normally and the drawing data using the nozzles (nozzles) that replace the defective nozzles (nozzles) are sorted and the degree of perfection Even if it is a low head, there is an effect that it can be used without problems as a liquid ejection device. In addition, it is not negligible as an effect that the cost of the medium to be manufactured can be reduced and the yield of the head can be relatively increased without performing a test for nozzle inspection every time.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a liquid ejection apparatus.
FIG. 2 is a sectional structural view of a liquid discharge nozzle.
FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a liquid ejection device.
FIG. 4 is nozzle defect data recording in a nonvolatile memory (EEPROM).
FIG. 5 is an explanatory diagram illustrating nozzle rows on an ejection surface of a multi-nozzle head.
FIG. 6 is a flowchart of a discharge performance test at the time of pickup inspection of the discharge head.
FIG. 7 is a two-dimensional ejection result image diagram of a nozzle test pattern.
FIG. 8 is a simplified diagram showing ejection failure nozzles and corresponding EEPROM areas;
FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing a drawing process on a medium of the microarray manufacturing apparatus.
[Explanation of symbols]
100 Liquid dispenser body
101 Discharge head
102 Solution supply reservoir (tank)
103 Communication cable with control device (PC)
104 Head driving direction guide rail
105 Stage drive direction guide rail
106 Stage / Drawing Media Installation Table
107 Power switch
200 glass substrate
201 Silicon substrate
202 Reservoir (Liquid supply tank)
203 Liquid supply port
204 Liquid flow path
205 Bubble
206 droplets
207 Heater
208 Protective film
209 Thermal storage layer
300 PCI BOX (print control PCB, head driver PCB, serial interface)
301 Motor driver for cartridge
302 head relay PCB
303 power supply
304 stage motor driver
305 encoder
306 Cartridge linear motor
307 Adapter PCB for each head
308 heads
309 EEPROM
310 cartridges
320 Stage for medium adsorption
321 stage linear motor
313 encoder
314 Surface plate
315 PC
500 Discharge surface (orifice surface)
501 32 x 32 nozzles (nozzles)
700 Drawing test pattern for evaluating discharge nozzle
701 Partial enlarged view of test pattern drawing for evaluation of discharge nozzle

Claims (6)

A liquid ejecting apparatus for producing a probe array arranged by ejecting droplets containing different probes at different positions on a substrate,
The liquid ejection apparatus includes a multi-nozzle head having an ejection surface in which a plurality of nozzles capable of ejecting droplets including different probes are arranged in a matrix;
Reading means for reading the information from a memory for storing information on the matrix positions of the defective nozzles of the multi-nozzle head in order to identify the location of the corresponding defective nozzles before discharging droplets onto the substrate;
Means for forming a drawn image excluding discharge from the defective nozzle based on the matrix position of the defective nozzle read by the reading means;
Based on the matrix position of the defective nozzle read by the reading means, an alternative nozzle that substitutes for the defective nozzle is designated at an undischarged position in the drawing image, and the droplet is supplied from the nozzle to the supply position of the defective nozzle. Means for controlling the second drawing to supply
A liquid ejecting apparatus comprising: The liquid ejecting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the memory is incorporated in the multi-nozzle head or the liquid ejecting apparatus , can be updated at all times, and can be managed and changed in units of multi-nozzle heads. In the memory, it is possible to further record the position of the nozzle, the availability of the nozzle, the presence / absence of the alternative nozzle, and further, the ejection performance test of each nozzle is executed in the test printing process at the time of the shipping inspection of the multi-nozzle head. The liquid ejecting apparatus according to claim 1, wherein information obtained in this manner is held . A liquid ejection method for producing a probe array in which droplets containing different probes are respectively ejected at different positions on a substrate,
In order to identify the location of a defective nozzle before discharging a droplet onto a substrate, a multi-nozzle head having a discharge surface in which a plurality of nozzles that can discharge droplets including different probes are arranged in a matrix, Reading means for reading the information from the memory for storing the information on the matrix position of the defective nozzle of the multi-nozzle head,
  Forming a drawn image excluding discharge from the defective nozzle based on the matrix position of the defective nozzle read by the reading means;
  Based on the matrix position of the defective nozzle read by the reading means, an alternative nozzle that substitutes for the defective nozzle is designated at an undischarged position in the drawing image, and the droplet is supplied from the nozzle to the supply position of the defective nozzle. A second drawing process for supplying
A liquid discharge method comprising: The liquid ejection method according to claim 4, wherein the memory is incorporated in the multi-nozzle head or the liquid ejection apparatus , and can be updated at any time, and can be managed and changed in units of the multi-nozzle head. In the memory, it is possible to further record the position of the nozzle, the availability of the nozzle, the presence / absence of the alternative nozzle, and further, the discharge performance test of each nozzle is executed in the test printing process at the time of the shipping inspection of the multi-nozzle head. The liquid ejection method according to claim 4 or 5, wherein the obtained information is held .

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