EPROM structure using thermal ink jet fire lines on a printhead

An integrated circuit (IC) erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM) structure for a thermal inkjet printhead, comprising:

• fire lines to provide fire line data;
• a select line to provide selecting data;
• a plurality of cells disposed in rows and columns, each cell coupled to one of the fire lines and the select line, each cell including:
• a firing cell;
• an EPROM cell;
• a selector cell;
• and
• a data switching circuit to provide address data to the firing cell or the EPROM cell;
• where the data switching circuit and the selector cell selectively enable transfer of the fire line data from a respective fire line to the firing cell or the EPROM cell as a function of state of the selecting data on the select line and the address data from the data switching circuit.

A printhead, comprising:

• a semiconductor substrate;
• firing cells formed in the substrate each having a heater resistor;
• erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM) cells formed in the substrate each having a floating-gate field effect transistor (FET);
• fire lines formed using conductors patterned on the substrate to receive fire line data;
• and
• selector cells formed in the substrate controllable to selectively enable transfer of the fire line data to the firing cells or the EPROM cells.