Hewlett-packard Company

Clayton E Chadez

Richard H Benear

A printer performs both the processing and printing tasks efficiently using controller firmware with a single data path (i.e., one ASIC). The printer has a periodic print cycle in which data for one page or plane (if multi-colored) is printed during each cycle. The print cycle is typically longer than the time needed to print one page or plane. Thus, the print cycle can be segmented into a &ldquo;printing phase&rdquo; in which the printing mechanism prints data, and a &ldquo;non-printing&rdquo; phase in which the printing mechanism does not print data. The controller firmware interleaves printing operations with non-printing operations during the printing and non-printing phases of the print cycle, respectively. During the printing phase, the controller is dedicated to printing a page or plane. During the non-printing phase, the controller is free to perform other tasks, such as compressing raster data for subsequent printing. The printer is configured with a set of operating parameters that enable the controller firmware to alternate between printing and non-printing tasks (e.g., data compression). Once released from manufacturing, the printer may, in practice, not perform optimally to the specifications. Thus, another aspect of this invention is to tune the operating parameters to achieve optimal performance for a specific printer. This tuning is a self-tuning technique that is performed in post-manufacture real-time, while the printer is in operation.

Printer and method for alternately printing and compressing data using same processing unit

A configurable data processing pipeline for processing data, such as print data, provides configuration flexibility, thereby allowing the data processing operations to be optimized for the data, while achieving improved data processing speed. In the preferred embodiment, the configurable data processing pipeline is implemented in an ASIC. The configurable data processing pipeline includes compression/decompression modules, a page strip manager, a color space conversion module, a merge module and a halftone module. A method for controlling the pipeline accepts raster image data after it has been processed by image rendering firmware and prepares the raster image data for transfer to the pipeline. Page rendering firmware performs this function. Next, pipeline control firmware takes control and thereafter operates the pipeline ASIC, independently of the page rendering firmware.

Growing community of inventors

Nampa, ID, United States of America

Clayton E Chadez