Patent ID: 8125505

Claim:
An image forming apparatus in which light beams emitted from respective ones of light-emitting elements are scanned on an image carrier by a deflection scanning unit to thereby form an electrostatic latent image on the image carrier, comprising: a sensor configured to detect any of the light beams deflected by the deflection scanning unit and output a detection signal; an oscillation unit configured to generate a reference clock; a detection unit configured to convert the detection signal into parallel data according to a first sub-clock obtained by multiplying the reference clock by N, and output the parallel data in synchronism with a clock obtained by dividing the first sub-clock by N; an image processing unit configured to operate based on the reference clock and output input image data in synchronism with the reference clock; a laser drive unit configured to receive the image data from said image processing unit in synchronism with a clock obtained by dividing, by M, a second sub-clock obtained by multiplying the reference clock by M and configured to drive the light-emitting elements based on serial data obtained by converting the received image data according to the second sub-clock; a first adjustment unit configured to adjust a timing of data delivery from said detection unit to said image processing unit based on a difference between a phase of the clock obtained by dividing the first sub-clock by N and a phase of the reference clock supplied to said image processing unit; and a second adjustment unit configured to adjust a timing of data delivery from said image processing unit to said laser drive unit based on a difference between the phase of the reference clock supplied to said image processing unit and a phase of the clock obtained by dividing the second sub-clock by M.