Patent ID: 7859555

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: an LED head including a plurality of LED elements arranged in an array form and selectively exposed to form an image; and a transfer controller connected via a predetermined cable to said LED head, for transferring image data to said LED head, wherein said transfer controller includes: a multiplex section configured to receive in parallel said image data and a control signal for driving said LED elements and to output bit parallel data composed of a plurality of bits upon multiplexing said image data and said control signal; and a converter configured to: (1) receive said bit parallel data composed of said plurality of bits and to output said bit parallel data upon converting to differential serial data pair and (2) receive a clock signal and to output said clock signal upon converting to a differential clock signal pair; and wherein said LED head includes: a reverse converter configured to: (1) receive said differential serial data pair via said predetermined cable and to output said differential serial data pair upon inversely converting to said bit parallel data composed of a plurality of bits, and (2) receive said differential clock signal pair and to output said differential clock signal pair upon inversely converting to said clock signal; a separating section configured to separate said bit parallel data composed of said plurality of bits into said image data and said control signal and to output said image data and said control signal, and a driver for driving said plurality of LED elements arranged in said array form upon reception of said image data and said control signal, wherein the control signal comprises a first control signal and a second control signal, and wherein the bit parallel data are formed of low-order image data and the second control signal, high-order image data and the second control signal, the first control signal and the second control signal, or the second control signal.