The end-to-end dimension is the width of print to be produced plus a generous tolerance. The drums in the copiers originally developed by Xerox Corporation were manufactured with a surface coating of amorphous selenium (more recently ceramic or organic photoconductor or OPC), applied by vacuum deposition. Amorphous selenium will hold an electrostatic charge in darkness and will conduct away such a charge under light. In the 1970s, IBM Corporation sought to avoid Xerox's patents for selenium drums by developing organic photoconductors as an alternative to the selenium drum. In the original system, photocopiers that rely on silicon or selenium (and its alloys) are charged positively in use (hence work with negatively-charged "toner" powder). Photoconductors using organic compounds are electrochemically charged vice versa to the preceding system in order to exploit their native properties in printing. Organic photoconductors are now preferred because they can be deposited on a flexible, oval or triangular, belt instead of a round drum, facilitating significantly smaller device build size.