Patent ID: 7898694

Claim:
A printer controller for a pagewidth printer having a printhead configured to print ink supplied from an ink cartridge with print quality information, said controller comprising: a processor having an address, data and control bus, an expander unit and a decoder unit each coupled to the bus and configured to receive a page having a bi-level black layer and a continuous tone (“contone”) layer, to decompress the respective layers in parallel, to halftone the contone layer data to bi-level data, and to composite the bi-level black layer over the bi-level data to form an image; a replaceable ink cartridge comprising a first integrated circuit (IC) containing the print quality information and which is configured to be interfaced with the processor; and a second IC interfaced to the processor which is configured to count a number of drops of ink printed by the printhead, to update a remaining drop count of the ink cartridge using the counted drops printed and then write an updated remaining drop count to the second IC each time a page has been printed.