KYOCERA develops world’s fastest thermal printhead for card printers

Enhancements to the KLE Series printhead structure using KYOCERA’s design technology have increased the print speed beyond that of its predecessor - which was already the industry’s frontrunner in print speed. The new printhead employs KYOCERA’s proprietary double partial glaze (DPG) structure in the real edge head*2. The DPG structure uses the convex shape of the heat-storage glaze layer to increase thermal efficiency for printing, thus achieving a speed about 1.5 times that of the company’s conventional real-edge printhead. This series also achieves a high-resolution print quality by using a split structure for the heater.

KYOCERA, which holds the top market share in the printhead industry, expands its lineup with this new product to meet customers’ wide range of needs and to realize the high-speed and high-resolution print quality required in the desktop card printer market.

*1 The KLE Series is the industry’s fastest thermal printhead for desktop card printers (based on Kyocera’s research as of February 9, 2010).
*2 Real edge printheads place the heating element on the edge of the substrate to enable printing without bending the media. Real edge printheads are mainly used for rigid materials such as plastic cards.

For more details about the KYOCERA KLE Series Thermal Printhead: http://global.kyocera.com/news/2010/0203_kvpn.html