Glossary

0
Target number of defects

1
128, 126, 1001 printheads

2
2 rows to give 360dpi

3
318 printhead, 360dpi

4
4-colour print systems referred to as process colours CMYK

5
500 printhead

6
Process colours plus Light Cyan and Light Magenta

7
760 printhead

8
Number of products in our printhead range

9
999 (UK) & 911 (US) - Emergency phone numbers, however if you need help developing your inkjet system, then call Xaar on +44 (0)1223 423663

Actuator
The active element of the printhead in which the pressure wave is generated to eject the ink.

Binary Inkjet
Binary printing is enabled by drop-on-demand printheads which can either fire a drop of one particular size or no drop at all.

Colour Management
This is the managing of colours so that they are consistent and correct. Unfortunately this can have nasty side effects in terms of inking levels for individual colourants. It is NOT the process of tweaking colours to make them look more pleasing.

Colour Mode Conversion
This is the conversion between RGB and CMYK. It is not monotonic and performing the operation twice will not get you back to the original value.

Colour Plane
This is a monochrome image that is assigned to a specific colourant or fluid. A CMYK image has 4 colour planes and an RGB image would have 3 colour planes.

Conductive
Any material that conducts electricity, i.e. not an insulator.

CIJ
Continuous Inkjet is a low resolution digital printing device used predominantly for crude outer case coding.

Datum
A physical plan that provides an accurate reference point.

DOD Inkjet
Drop-on-Demand. The printheads can be precisely controlled to produce ink drops when required to produce high quality, repeatable images.

DPD
The number, or maximum number, of sub drops in a printed drop. See "grey levels".

DPI (AKA Addressability)
This is the number of Drop Per Inch in a specified direction for the print matrix (i.e what appears on the substrate) and does not have to be the same in the nozzle and print directions. Often the term "Resolution" is incorrectly used to mean the same thing.

Drop Interleaving (AKA Drop Interlacing, Interleave Printing etc.)
This is the system by which adjacent drops in a print image can be set down on different passes. Interleaving across the print head "Nozzle Direction Interleave" is often referred to as simply "Interleave". "Print Direction Interleave" is often referred to as "Shingling". However the term "Shingling" is also used sometimes as a generic term for both directions. The purpose of this is to disperse errors (nozzle deviations and outages) about a print to remove coherence.

End-shooter
In an ‘End-Shooter’ printhead at the end of each channel is a small hole through which the ink is ejected.

Fast & Slow Scan Directions
These terms should be used instead of “X” and “Y” directions as the latter terms are not implicitly meaningful. There is always a “fast scan” direction which is the direction of the relative movement of the head and substrate. The “slow scan” direction is at 90 degrees to the fast one though may not be present at all in some systems. These terms are useful when relating the printing motion to a particular image.

Filter
A membrane that allows clean ink to pass through it but not particles or contamination of above a certain size.

Grey Levels
This is the number of discrete densities in an image, either pre or post screening. DPD is typically one less than the number of grey levels and zero is also a grey level.

Greyscale
Xaar greyscale technology incorporates drop-on-demand with a variable drop size.  Greyscale printheads fire drops made up of smaller sub drops, by varying the drop size a smoother image is attained.

HSS ^TM
Xaar’s Innovative Hybrid Side Shooter technology - Two acoustic waves moving through the channel meet in the middle and cause pressure changes which fire a drop out of the side of the channel i.e. downwards through the inkjet nozzle.

Inkjet
Xaar uses drop-on-demand inkjet technology (see DOD inkjet technology).

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LPI
This is the number of lines per inch used for screening and is a term used by the litho print industry to represent the pitch of the drops that can be seen with an eye glass. Typical sizes are 133 and 166 LPI. If drop sizes can represent 256 levels (full range greyscale) then the DPI of the printer is the LPI.

Media
The surface to be printed upon for example paper, textile and plastic.

Natural Resolution (AKA Natural DPI)
This should be called “Natural DPI” as the use of “resolution” is totally incorrect but the term is in wide use. It is the number of nozzles per inch on the printhead.

NPI
Number of nozzles per inch on the printhead. See “Natural Resolution” and “DPI”

NWC
Non-wetting coating.

OEM
Original Equipment Manufacturer.  Xaar’s direct customers are typically OEMs, they use Xaar printheads and peripherals as components in the machines which they in turn sell to their customers.

OLEDs
Organic Light Emitting Diodes are components used in a new type of viewing screen [display]. Can be viewed in bright lighting conditions, at greater angles, unlike LCD's. Beginning to be used in digital cameras.

Pallet Remap (aka DPD indirection)
This is the process of making a one to one link between a calculated grey level (after screening) and the DPD value (not necessarily the same as the actual DPD number) that is sent to the head. This can be because the data needs inverting or that it is required for compatibility with the loaded waveform.

Piezoelectric
Mechanical distortion of the material results in the formation of a charge across the material, or vice versa. The most common material in general use is PZT, Lead Zirconium Titanate.

Pixel
Short for Pixel Element - the basic element or fundamental building block of a bitmapped image. It is a colored tile which, when displayed in a mosaic of thousands or millions of other pixels, comprises a digital image.

Pixel line
The single line of dots ejected from the printhead onto the media when the printhead is fired.

Print Driver
A piece of software that supplies images to a printer for printing.

Polyimide
A family of polymers involving carbon and nitrogen bonds, known for good thermal stability, mechanical toughness and chemical resistance used in thick/thin film microelectronics and displays.

Purging
The process of forcing ink out of the nozzles, either by vacuum or pressure.

PZT
Lead Zirconium Titanate, the piezoelectric ceramic material used in making the actuator.

Quality
In inkjet terms this is a mix between resolution and tutorial range i.e. the number of shades or tones that go into making up a print.

(Drop) Redundancy
This is where a particular area (pixel) can be printed by more than one nozzle. So if a nozzle is blocked the pixel can be printed by the other nozzle. This may take place on a different pass.

Resolution
The amount of detail that can be resolved out of an image, ie. The number of discrete drops of ink that are fired onto a controlled size of media (dots per inch (dpi)).

RIP (aka Raster Image Processor, Renderer)
This is a piece of software that takes an image in some form and generates a bitmap of the correct size and depth (number of grey levels) for a printing system.

RFID
Radio Frequency identification (ID). Devices attached to objects that transmit data to an RFID receiver as an alternative to bar coding. Advantages include data capacity, read/write capability, and no line-of-sight requirements.

Screening (akaLevelling, Dithering)
Most images are created at 256 grey levels per colorant. Screening is the process by which these 256 levels are synthesised using the discrete levels available in a printhead. Binary-Screening (converting a greyscale image to single sized drops and spaces) is well developed today but screening to a number of sized drops (e.g. 8) is not widely available.

Slicing (aka Bacon Slicing, Shuffling, Translation Service)
This is the process where an image is cut up into swathes for an individual printhead. It takes into account the forms of Interleaving and drop laydown strategies required for the print. The splitting of a print line into odd and even nozzles on a Xaar 760 or 1001 head is a trivial form of slicing and should NOT be called "slicing" as the term implies much more sophistication.

Stitching
This is the strategy for the managing of edge effects between print swathes. It is often called "Soft-stitching" though this term actually describes a sub-sets of the various strategies.

Strokes
Image data is loaded into the printhead one Stroke at a time. A Stroke has exactly the same number of pixels (channels) as there are printing nozzles in the printhead.

Substrate
See media

Swathe
The band of print produced by one pass of a printhead

TC
Temperature Compensation – the way in which the printhead compensates for changes in the viscosity of ink due to temperature.

UV Curable Inks
After printing the ink is cured by exposure to strong UV-light.  The advantage of UV-curable inks is that they "dry" as soon as they are cured they can be applied to a wide-range of uncoated substrates.

Variable
Variable drop produces high quality, high productivity results.

Waveform
The drive signal applied to the PZT wall to produce a pressure wave in the channel.

Windows Print Driver
A "print driver" that uses the Windows User Interface or GUI.

Wiping
The process of clearing the nozzle plate from excess ink or contamination.

XaarDOT
XaarDOT^TM (Xaar Drop Optimisation Technology) encompasses a range of drop formulation options, each with specific features.

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