PRINTER CONTROLLER FOR A PAGEWIDTH PRINTHEAD HAVING HALFTONER AND COMPOSITOR UNIT

摘要

Provided is a printer controller for controlling a pagewidth printhead. The controller includes an interface for receiving an image having a bi-level black data layer compressed in an Edge Delta and Runlength (EDRL) compression format and a continuous tone (contone) CMYK data layer. Also included is an EDRL expander and a Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) decoder unit for expanding the image by simultaneously decompressing the two data layers in parallel, as well as a halftoner and compositor unit for halftoning the contone CMYK data layer into bi-level CMYK data layer and compositing the bi-level black data layer over the bi-level CMYK data layer to form a composited bi-level CMYK image. The controller further includes a processor and memory arrangement configured to control the interface, the expander and decoder unit, and the halftoner and compositor unit, and further configured to transmit the composited bi-level CMYK image to a memory buffer of the pagewidth printer via a printhead interface.