Patent ID: 7712876

Claim:
A printhead for an inkjet printer, the printhead comprising: an elongate wafer substrate; an array of nozzles fabricated on the elongate wafer substrate, the array of nozzles being arranged in a first row and a second row extending parallel to each other and the longitudinal extent of the wafer substrate, each nozzle having an ejection aperture and a corresponding actuator for ejecting printing fluid through the ejection aperture; and, drive circuitry for transmitting electrical power to electrodes of the actuators, the drive circuitry being CMOS layers on one surface of the wafer substrate, the CMOS layers being supplied with power and data along a long edge of the wafer substrate, each of the actuators has a pair of electrodes spaced apart from each other in a direction transverse to the long edge such that one of electrode of each of the electrode pairs is proximate the long edge and the other electrode of each of the electrode pairs is remote from the long edge, at least one of the electrodes remote from the long edge of the first row sharing a current path which conducts current from the CMOS layers to the electrodes with at least one of the electrodes remote from the long edge of the second row, the first row is nearer to the long edge than the second row, the electrode pairs of the first row are interleaved with the electrode pairs of the second row, the proximate electrodes of the second row being closer to the long edge than the remote electrodes of the first row, and further from the long edge than the proximate electrodes of the first row; wherein, the actuators in the first row have a current flow direction opposing the current flow direction of the actuators in the second row.