Patent ID: 8254709

Claim:
A variable length encoding (VLE) device of an image compression system, suitable for performing VLE on block image signals transformed and quantized by other image processing modules, the VLE device comprising: a plurality of encoding modules configured for parallel processing, for performing the VLE on the block image signals, wherein an operating frequency of each of the encoding modules is a fractional frequency of a throughput rate of the image compression system, wherein a number M of the encoding modules is determined by using following Equation (1) and Equation (2): ( T 1*( N− 1))< T 2<=( T 1 *N ) Equation (1), N<=M ( M is an integer) Equation (2), wherein T 1 is a maximum processing time equal to or greater than a processing time required by each of the other image processing modules, and the T 2 is a maximum processing time required by the VLE device for processing each of the block image signals; and a selection module, for selecting the encoding modules in turn to perform the VLE on the block image signals.