Patent ID: 7188935

Claim:
A printhead for an inkjet printer, the printhead comprising: a silicon wafer substrate with an ink ejection side and an opposing ink inlet side; an array of nozzles formed on the ink ejection side, each nozzle having an ejection actuator and an ejection aperture for ejecting ink drops towards a media substrate; an array of ink inlets formed in the ink inlet side, each of the ink inlets individually associated with one of the nozzles; and, a plurality of ink channels having silicon walls defined through said silicon wafer substrate and extending between each of the ink inlets and each of the ejection actuators respectively, wherein each of the ink channels is longer than 100 microns and has a length through the substrate which is longer than its widest diameter, and wherein the array of ink inlets is in registration with the ejection apertures such that the ink channel is normal to the plane of the wafer substrate, thereby defining a linear fluid path between each ink inlet and each ejection actuator.