Printhead assembly with an ink supply carrier supporting an ink distributing molding

1. A printhead assembly comprising:

a printhead integrated circuit (IC) for ejecting ink;

an elongate molding which defines a recess for holding the printhead IC, the molding defining a plurality of separate ink passages each in fluid communication with the printhead IC; and

an elongate support member which supports the elongate molding, and defines a plurality of separate ink reservoirs each in fluid communication with a respective ink passage and each axially extending along the support member; the support member comprising a core element which defines the ink reservoirs and a shell in which the core element can be received, the shell being a laminate of different sheet materials covering an external surface of the core element.

2. A printhead assembly as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the laminate comprises a plurality of metal layers which together define the shell with a coefficient of thermal expansion which is comparable to that of silicon.

3. A printhead assembly as claimed in claim 2 , wherein one of the layers has a first co-efficient of thermal expansion and is located between a pair of layers each having a second co-efficient of thermal expansion.

4. A printhead assembly as claimed in claim 3 , wherein the first co-efficient of thermal expansion is greater than the second co-efficient of thermal expansion.

5. A printhead assembly as claimed in claim 4 , wherein the second co-efficient of thermal expansion is about 1.3×10 −6 m/° C.

6. A printhead assembly as claimed in claim 4 , wherein the first co-efficient of thermal expansion exceeds 2.5×10 −6 m/° C.

7. A printhead assembly as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the molding is a micro-molding.

8. A printhead assembly as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the core element is molded from plastics material.