Technology FAQs

Memjet technology is a new generation of printing technology for wide format customers, delivering extremely fast, color printing performance at breakthrough costs per page and price points relative to performance. 

The technology consists of four main components including page-wide printheads, high performance controller chips, software and custom inks, which Memjet Wide Format sells to OEM brands to be integrated into their own branded printing devices. 

Memjet devices are page printers that are designed to process and print an entire color page in one pass.  The print engine spans the width of the printer so that it can print the entire width of the page while the paper simply moves underneath the printhead.  The Memjet software and controller work together to efficiently process page data.  The controller contains a high speed 648 MHz processor and embedded memory sufficient to print even complex pages at rapid speeds.  Each printhead contains 70,400 nozzles and can print up to 900 million drops per second with minimal warm up time. 

Memjet's customized inks are absorbed into the paper in milliseconds.  Prints, even high-coverage prints, can be handled immediately after printing and are highlighter resistant.

The Memjet printhead nozzles are small enough that the human eye is not able to see the impact of single clogged nozzles distributed randomly across a Memjet printhead.  Even so, the Memjet components and related ink delivery and maintenance systems have been carefully designed to mitigate clogging and other potential problems that lead to print quality issues.  

The surface of the Memjet printheads and the silicon nozzle's structure are designed to be effectively wiped clean by a maintenance system.  Each Memjet based device will be delivered with a maintanence system designed to keep nozzles healthy while the device is printing as well as after it has been idle for a period of time.  Maintenance system regimes have been designed into Memjet controller chips and can also be adjusted by OEM brands to support a range of printing environments and customer requirements.     

Yes.  Memjet inks are customized to ensure sustained performance and quality using a Memjet printhead.  Using the wrong ink can dramatically decrease the capability of a Memjet printhead and can ultimately destroy it.  While the chemistry and fluid dynamics of Memjet ink formulations are unique and specific, the Memjet water-based inks have many ingredients in common with inks used in wide format printing environments today.

Yes.  While the first ink commercialized with Memjet technology will be a water based, dye ink, future ink development will include pigmented inks.  With future printheads, Memjet Wide Format will investigate and commercialize specialized inks to address a wide array of market segments and applications.