Australia’s inkjet credentials run deep

[Anonymous]

Australia’s inkjet credentials run deep

The $700 million development of Memjet was not without speed bumps but the technology is gathering pace.

Last month, I spoke about the connection between Adelaide’s Research Laboratories of Australia and liquid toner development. There is another Australian connection to digital printing: Silverbrook Research, which has facilities in North Ryde, Sydney.
 
More than a decade ago, a small team of Australian scientists led by Kia Silverbrook developed the Memjet colour printheads, which use “waterfall” technology with 70,400 jets per head to shoot millions of ink drops per second. 

HP has them. So do Kodak, Fujifilm Dimatix (formerly Spectra), and others. Micro-Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) permit larger and denser arrays of smaller ink orifices, increasing resolution and printing speed. MEMS inkjet heads can be fabricated using modified semiconductor fabrication technology, laser ablation, photolithography, molding and plating, wet etching and dry etching, electro-discharge machining (EDM) and other technologies capable of manufacturing very small devices.

This development did not come easily. More than $700 million was expended with many companies investing in the technology. Frictions occurred and there was a lawsuit. The result was that Memjet will assume direct ownership and control of the intellectual property portfolio related to the Memjet technology. It will assume direct control of all research, development and commercialisation activities for Memjet technology. Kia Silverbrook will continue to support Memjet as a special adviser to the board of directors and as a consultant.

Memjet has partnerships with some of the world’s leading manufacturers and brands, including Lenovo, LG, and others. At Drupa, it announced a number of new partnerships.

One new partner is Canon-Océ. Using Memjet technology, Canon-Océ will introduce a large-format colour printer that is up to 15 times faster than conventional inkjet systems. Print speeds can reach up to 500 A0 prints per hour at 1,600x800dpi. The new printer has been dubbed ‘Project Velocity’.

Delphax Technologies announced a partnership with Memjet in January. At Drupa, Delphax displayed the Memjet-powered Elan 500 sheetfed commercial colour printing system for print-on-demand applications such as direct mail, transpromo printing, billing, and book and manual printing. It is a 500 page per minute press using a new sheet transport. It will be positioned between current flagship colour digital presses and the entry-level webfed machines from Kodak, Océ and HP.

Xanté announced a partnership with Memjet in September 2011 and has introduced the Excelagraphix 4200, a 42-inch-wide commercial printer for short-run and variable-data printing.

Colordyne Technologies, which also partnered with Memjet last September, announced a series of high-speed, on-demand colour industrial printers based on Memjet technology. The Memjet-powered Colordyne CDT-1600 PC Sprint was showcased at Memjet’s booth.

Astro Machine Corp became a Memjet partner in 2010 and makes industrial inkjet printers, labelers, conveyors, and envelope feeders.

A wide-format system from Fuji Xerox and Caldera offers widths of up to 42 inches. This product should launch in the Asia-Pacific region by the end of the year. It is a four-colour aqueous inkjet printer using dye-based inks. The maximum continuous length of print is 30 metres. Print speeds were six inches per second, which equals 6,300 square feet per hour or 585m2/hour at a print resolution of 1600x1600dpi.

Fuji-Xerox is Memjet’s biggest partner to date and strong in some of the world’s emerging markets, where wide-format is expected to grow at a fast pace.

[Author]

August 9, 2012 at 8:22 AM