Until recently, the four major sectors of the digital communications market - telecommunications, data communications, utility communications and enterprise communications – had little in common. Each sector developed relatively independent of the others, using different (and often isolated) networks and data types to transmit information. This paradigm is changing rapidly – with profound implications for the hardcopy industry, not only in terms of product functionality and printer controller architectures, but also in terms of the acquisition and use of hardcopy data.Advances in semiconductor technology such as the programmable DSP are making digital convergence a reality. As a result, hardcopy, softcopy, voice, audio, video, and enterprise data soon all will be traveling over the same airwaves and wires at extremely high data rates. This DSP-driven digital convergence will give rise to a new generation of networked communication or information appliances that capture, create, and display data types in useful and intriguing new ways. Technologies from Texas Instruments are at the heart of this revolution, and our insights may help product engineers understand the business opportunities and market dynamics created by the powerful new connections now taking shape in the digital communications marketplace.

The past twenty years have seen many breathtaking changes in printing technologies as we progressed from typewriters to digital presses. This pace shows no signs of slowing down. Digital printing will continue to evolve.In this talk, the future of ink jet will be explored. To date, ink jet, the major technology for home printing has not dominated in the area of networked printers. The reasons for this, as well as the strengths and limitations of ink jet will be explored. The improvements that will be necessary to expand ink jet to its full potential across a range of applications will be discussed. We will look to the future and see how hard copy will deal with the world of the internet and cyberspace. Finally, we will try to speculate where this will all lead.

The evolution of the internet has profound implications for imaging and printing. This presentation discusses the nature and rate of internet change, business model and technology challenges for service providers, imaging and printing companies, consumers, enterprises and commercial operations. Opportunities for better industry collaboration and improved open standards opportunities will also be presented.

This talk will focus on aqueous ink technology and its place in the world of industrial printing. As such, it will encompass the role of media for paper and commercial / industrial solutions based on piezo and thermal inkjet print head technologies and the inks associated with these applications. A discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of aqueous based solutions compared to both solvent-based and UV-curing inks as solutions to particular problems will be included. The talk will conclude with some commentary on recent developments and what this might indicate about future developments

Drupa is a landmark within the printing industry for the introduction of new production printing systems. However Drupa 2000 may well be the first Drupa to witness the launch of more in-press imaging printing systems and electronic printing systems than conventional printing presses. Since nearly all content that is created and prepared for publishing, has been processed in a computer system, a computer-to…output device is now the method of choice.In addition to advances and adaptations of existing technologies, several new technologies will be presented for the first time; with the potential of having a big impact on the printing and communication industry. Certain production requirements can be addressed and new fields of application created, depending on the technology applied by using a permanent master or a variable image carrier. Among the many novelties we will see, are tools to support the trend towards integration of the whole print production process. This paper will discuss some of the prominent technological developments exhibited at Drupa and their implications on future markets.

Ink jet and laser printer have transformed the way people generate hard copy output in the home and office. More than three hundred million of these printing devices have been sold and another three hundred million or more will be sold in the next three years alone. With the billions of dollars now invested in these “digital patterning technologies”, where will they be applied next? This paper will explore some of the advantages that these “digital patterning technologies” can offer in combination with advancements in computing power and the Internet. It will compare user needs with these new capabilities. It will explore some of the reasons manufacturers who use traditional analog patterning technologies are scrambling to try to figure out how to join the digital revolution.

In recent years, the inkjet technology has made great strides in the print quality. By introducing fine droplets, deep and light color inks, optimized media, and advanced color and image processing, the latest inkjet printers can produce photo-quality prints. Of these many improvements, the most contributive one is that the innovative piezoelectric print head has reduced the ink droplet size by a factor of ten in the latest five years. This innovation has been accomplished by optimizing head dimensions and driving signals as well as improving the manufacturing and assembling process. The piezoelectric actuator driven by the signal, optimized for the particular print head model, can precisely control the unrestrained ink meniscus vibration at the nozzle openings to achieve multi-sized droplets ejection in a sequent manner as well as stabilized droplet ejection up to the extremely high ejection repetition frequency. This Variable-Sized Droplet Technology (VSDT) has made it possible to introduce the digital photoprinters to the market without trading off the throughput. This paper shows how the piezoelectric inkjet technology has been improved and how much flexibility it has for particular use in home, office and industry.

The dominant digital printing technologies today and for the near future are based either on toner - delivered by electrophotography, magnetography or electron beam imaging - or ink jet processes using liquid or solid inks. All of these technologies have various shortcomings, both technical and cost limitations, leaving room for potential new technologies.But can any new technology emerge and be successfully exploited now, or will we just see incremental development of existing technologies? The industry is littered with novel, innovative yet unexploited techniques that never quite made it. Has the shake-out of mainstream technologies already occurred or is there scope for new ones? Success requires that a new technology be both technically feasible and financially viable and any new technology would need significant advantages over existing ones. Can existing companies with well entrenched and successful technologies adopt new ones, or is it only newcomers and upstarts who can succeed?This paper reviews the shortcomings of existing technologies, considers whether any new printing or marking applications exist, reviews some of the emerging yet still to be exploited technologies - such as ToneJet, TonerJet, AIP, Elcorsy, Direct Imaging, microfluidics and reusable paper, and assesses what the scope might be for these and other currently invisible contenders.

This paper quantitatively examines the underlying thermodynamics behind split fire pulse timings. It is shown that there is a direct relationship between the properties of the superheated boundary layer at the onset of bubble nucleation and the experimental data. An application specific - finite element program is shown to predict the jetting response curves with a 0.92 correlation coefficient. The theoretical analysis is robust enough to accurately predict the jetting response for varying pulse trains on two vastly different print head designs. Finally, it is shown that the maxima of the jetting response curves versus time are fundamentally related to the thermal diffusivity of the thin films.

For years, the idea of the “paperless office” put forth by “futurists” a decade or so ago has been laughed at in the computer printer industry, which has watched gleefully as office and consumer paper consumption soared year after year. But the advent of the Internet means that the paperless, or at least less-paper office, and perhaps lesspaper home, is no longer a joke. The Internet has changed the role of paper: it once was the document, but has become only a transient display medium for the document, which is now a computer file, email, or Web site. Even though paper consumption continues to rise, research shows that many, even most documents that cross a person's desk are no longer printed. And, as computer design and display technology improve, that percentage can only rise. At the same time, a horde of “dot-coms” are spending billions to automate processes in every industry that have long depended on inefficient paper-shuffling. In short, a paper-based culture that has lasted hundreds of years is under assault, an assault that will certainly affect the market for computer printers and printing.