Abstract: An increased resolution thermal ink jet printhead construction and method for forming large array heater chips for thermal ink jet printheads is achieved by fabricating a unitary "megachip" in which multiple cells of electrical components are defined in a plurality of columnar patterns in a plane of a silicon wafer. Cells of a first column are vertically offset from cells of an adjacent column so as to overlap the gap between cells in the first column. The megachip is then formed by grouping at least one cell from each of two adjacent columns and dicing the wafer to remove the megachip.