Patent ID: 7168167

Claim:
A method of fabricating an inkjet printhead having an array of inkjet nozzle arrangements that is configured to span a width of a print medium, each nozzle arrangement having a substrate that incorporates CMOS drive circuitry and a micro electromechanical system connected to the CMOS drive circuitry to be actuated by the CMOS drive circuitry to displace at least one component of the micro electromechanical system relative to the substrate so as to achieve the ejection of ink from a nozzle of the nozzle arrangement as a result of such displacement of each component, said method comprising the steps of: forming the CMOS drive circuitry on the substrate, the CMOS drive circuitry comprising a plurality of drive circuitry firing groups, each said drive circuitry firing group containing a plurality of drive transistors; fabricating the inkjet nozzle arrangements with an integrated circuit fabrication technique carried out on the substrate so that each nozzle arrangement is operatively connected to the CMOS drive circuitry, the step of fabricating the inkjet nozzle arrangements including the step of: using a replication protocol carried out on one of the nozzle arrangements to achieve the array with a desired configuration, the replication protocol including replicating a single nozzle arrangement to fill a first group of nozzles; replicating the first group of nozzles to fill a second group of nozzles; replicating the second group of nozzles to fill a third group of nozzles; and replicating the third group of nozzles a plurality of times to form the inkjet printhead; the inkjet nozzles comprising a plurality of nozzle firing groups, each said nozzle firing group comprising a plurality of nozzles; associating each said nozzle firing group with one of said drive circuitry firing groups.