Patent ID: 8386781

Claim:
An image forming apparatus, comprising: a main body portion of the image forming apparatus; and at least one replaceable unit which is mountable to the main body portion of the image forming apparatus to execute an image forming operation, wherein the main body portion of the image forming apparatus comprises a main controller to control operations of the image forming apparatus, wherein the at least one replaceable unit comprises: a memory unit to store information regarding the replaceable unit and to store a second initialization program different from a first initialization program used in the main controller for performing an initialization of the image forming apparatus, the second initialization program including at least one of initialization of a memory value, confirmation of a replacement time of the replaceable unit, setting of register values in the replaceable unit, and setting of internal and external clock signals of the image forming apparatus; and a central processing unit (CPU) which is coupled to the memory unit, wherein, when the replaceable unit is mounted to the image forming apparatus, the CPU is initialized using the second initialization program, the CPU configured to access the information stored in the memory unit and to perform authentication and cryptographic data communication with the main controller of the image forming apparatus.