The present invention is embodied in a system and method for using lower data rates (312) and less memory, for high nozzles per inch printheads (110). The printing system (100) of the present invention includes a printhead assembly (110) and an ink supply (112) for printing ink on print media (114). The printhead assembly (110) includes a printhead body, ink channels (121), a substrate, such as a semiconductor wafer, a nozzle member (120) and a barrier layer located between the wafer and nozzle member (120). The nozzle member (120) has plural nozzles coupled to respective ink channels (121) and is secured at a predefined location to the printhead body with a suitable adhesive layer. The printhead (110) has a controller (116) which can be firmware, software or any suitable processor that can control the ejection of ink from the plural nozzles. The controller (116) can be defined in the integrated circuit as receiving data stored in the data in the buffer memory (302), assigning primitive addresses (308) in the heater array from the data, and determining the firing pulse rate of the heater elements (117) in the heater array so as to maintain accuracy and precision of ink droplet placement by simultaneously limiting the number of nozzles firing and decreasing a data rate of firing of each nozzle. The controller (116) can be created by any suitable integrated circuit manufacturing or programming process.