Patent ID: 7123278

Claim:
A light emitting diode (LED) printer for writing a digital image on an image carrier of an image forming apparatus, said LED printer comprising: LED array units, each unit made up of an LED array having a plurality of LED's arrayed to lie in one direction and focusing means for focusing light from said LED array onto said image carrier; image data transfer control means for dividing and transferring image data, which has been transferred to said image data transfer control means, for each of a plurality of said multiple LED array units arranged in a zigzag pattern in an axial direction of said image carrier; dividing means for dividing an area of said LED array unit energized to illuminate at a time into plural parts; first LED illumination control means for controlling the intensity of emitted light for each of the areas energized to illuminate at a time; and second LED illumination control means for controlling the intensity of emitted light for each of said LED array units.