A thermal printhead is a line of resistors, whose output is a line of precisely controlled dots of heat, which produce images in conjunction with heat-sensitive paper or ribbons. The most common applications of thermal printing are barcoded product labels, ID cards/driver's licenses and POS receipts. Thermal prints are typically more durable than ink jet prints and better quality than impact prints. Color dye diffusion prints are also more photo-realistic than ink jet prints. For receipt printing, thermal printer mechanisms are simpler than any other print technology.
Kyocera sells thermal printheads in quantity to printer manufacturers who first provide confidential specifications of mounting and interface details. Kyocera cannot disclose these specification details to others and cannot sell printheads manufactured with proprietary tooling, except to the owners of that tooling. Kyocera sales engineers do work with our customers' engineers to specify thermal printheads which achieve the customers' performance, durability and cost objectives.
The technical standard of this group is to only manufacture with thin film technology. A thin film heater element produces a better-formed dot image, with less gap between adjacent dots. This dot quality is absolutely necessary for photorealistic images. Kyocera has chosen to also use this higher quality technology for all other print heads and depend upon automation and production volume to offset its higher cost.
Commitments to quality and to the environment are reflected in the Thermal Printhead Division's continuing ISO 9001, 9002 and 14001 certifications.
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The
Kyocera Thermal Printhead team will be available at
the IMI 17th Annual Thermal Printing Conference,
May 15-17, 2006 in Las Vegas.
Mr. Hidekazu (Henry) Akamatsu, Manager of Development and Application Engineering,
Thermal Printhead Division, Kyocera Corporation, Japan will present
RECENT APPLICATIONS & REQUIREMENTS FOR THERMAL PRINTHEADS on May 17 at 8 am.
Earlier presentations will cover the thermal printing industry and various technologies
of thermal media.
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