Epson has announced that later this month they will be releasing a new print technology that will produce more advanced prints that currently possible using their, or any other, inkjet technology.

They have succeeded in developing an advance to their Micro Piezo print head technology. They have advanced their Micro Piezo print technology with what they are calling a thin film piezo element.

Epson’s Micro Piezo print head has been used in their Stylus Photo and Stylus Pro inkjet printers for man years now. The original Micro Piezo technology uses electrical signals to change the shape of piezo elements and then fires ink droplets according to the physical force generated by the change in the shape of the elements. This technology has earned very high praise from the photo printing community.

Inkjet printing systems are attracting more attention because they are being used more frequently in printing and manufacturing processes (thus Epson’s interest in a better Micro Piezo system). Micro Piezo technology offers superior ink ejection performance and compatibility with a with a wide variety of inks and durability. As a result, it has been used very effectively in commercial and industrial fields such as photo lab printing, digital printing, textile printing, and color filter manufacturing. Micro Piezo technology is suitable for functions ranging from consumer applications to commercial and industrial applications. Importantly, it is a cost effective solution due to its high degree of reliability and production volume efficiency.

With all this in mind, Epson has been focusing its development work on creating a next-generation Micro Piezo print head to support expansion of the inkjet printer beyond consumers an to business and industry.

The result? Epson has developed a print head nozzle with a density of 360 dpi. According to Epson, this is the highest density in the world for an inkjet printer (we could not find any evidence to the contrary as of yet) using piezoelectric technology, while at the same time maintaining the advantages of the conventional Micro Piezo print heads.

As this technology advances it will usher in a new era of speedier, more compact, and better performing that Epson has ever produced before.

Be on the lookout for a new wave of Epson printer models as this technology takes hold. As we said before, Epson’s initial focus for this technology is more in the business and industrial areas, but it will definitely makes it’s way to the individual consumers.