Bidirectional ink jet recording head

Claim 1

An ink jet recording head for recording in response to an inputted driving direction control signal indicating an input direction, said recording head comprising: a pair of recording units provided on opposite sides of a base plate, each one of said pair of recording units comprising: a plurality of recording elements for discharging ink onto a recording medium, said recording elements comprising heat generating elements for generating heat energy to emit ink for recording, ink paths and emission ports, said emission ports communicating with said ink paths for directing emitted ink onto the recording medium, a driving integrated circuit having a transmission path for inputting serially an input recording data signal, and a shift register for serially inputting the input recording data signal through said transmission path in a sequence and for supplying the recording signal in parallel to said plurality of recording elements, wherein said transmission path is switchable between a first state in which said transmission path transmits the recording data to said shift register in a first direction in an order of an alignment of said recording elements and a second state in which said transmission path transmits the recording data to said shift register in a second direction opposite to the first input direction, controlling driving of direction control means for controlling driving of said plurality of recording elements, according to the inputted driving direction control signal, bidirectionally in an order along the input direction of the driving direction control signal, and time divisional driving means for driving sequentially the plural recording elements in predetermined units of plural elements according to the input direction of the driving direction control signal, wherein ink droplets discharged in a same recording line from two corresponding emission ports of said pair of recording units are deposited onto substantially a same locus.