Thermal print head high-speed driving apparatus and method
AssigneeSamsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
InventorJung-Youg Lee
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A thermal printer head high-speed driving apparatus positioned between a microcomputer and a thermal printer head. The apparatus stores driving history information of thermal cells in the thermal printer head corresponding to a previous line and a line before last, the driving information of the current cell of a present line to be printed and driving information of adjacent thermal cells preceding and following of the current cell. Using the stored information the high-speed driving apparatus derives drive time data for controlling an on-time of the current cell, thereby individually controlling each thermal cell of the thermal print head.
Claims20
A thermal printer head high-speed driving apparatus positioned between a microcomputer and a thermal printer head for controlling an on-time of each thermal cell in the thermal printer head, said apparatus comprising:
- a first register portion for storing driving history information of the thermal cells in the thermal printer head corresponding to a last printed line and a line printed before last, driving information of a current thermal cell of a present line to be printed and driving information of an immediately adjacent thermal cell of the present line preceding the current thermal cell and driving information of an immediately adjacent thermal cell of the present line following of the current thermal cell;
- a printing data generating portion for generating driving time information for each thermal cell by logically combining the driving history information of the last printed line and the line printed before last corresponding to said current thermal cell, said driving information of said current thermal cell and said driving information of said immediately adjacent thermal cells;
- and
- a second register portion for storing said driving time information, outputting said driving time information sequentially within a predetermined time period, and combining said driving time information to generate a driving pulse for controlling an on-time duration of said current thermal cell.
A method of individually controlling the on-time of each thermal cell of a thermal printer head driven at high speed, said method comprising the steps of:
- generating driving time information by logically combining, for each thermal cell to be printed, driving history information of the thermal cell corresponding to a last printed line, driving history information of the thermal cell corresponding to a line before last previously printed, driving information of the thermal cell of a present line to be printed and driving information of two thermal cells immediately adjacent to and in the same line as the thermal cell to be printed;
- storing the driving time information;
- generating output enable signals for controlling when the driving time information is read from storage;
- combining the driving time information read from storage to produce printing data for driving the thermal cell of the thermal print head to be printed, wherein the on-time of the thermal cell driven by the print data is variable according to values of the driving time information.
A method of individually controlling a pulse width of each thermal cell driving pulse for each thermal cell of a thermal printer head driven at high speed, said method comprising the steps of:
- generating an n-bit driving time information signal by logically combining, for each thermal cell to be printed, driving history information of the thermal cell corresponding to a last printed line, driving history information of the thermal cell corresponding to a line before last previously printed, driving information of the thermal cell of a present line to be printed and driving information of two thermal cells immediately adjacent to and in the same line as the thermal cell to be printed;
- storing said n-bit driving time information signal;
- generating output enable signals for controlling when each bit of the n-bit driving time information signal is sequentially read from storage;
- combining each bit of the n-bit driving time information signal read from storage to produce said thermal cell driving pulse for driving the thermal cell of the thermal print head to be printed, wherein the pulse width of said thermal cell driving pulse is variable according to the logic values as of each of said bits of the n-bit driving time information signal.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.