Patent ID: 7679790

Claim:
An image processing apparatus which decompresses compressed image data and provides decompressed image data to a printer engine, comprising: a decompression unit, including a dynamic reconfigurable logic device dynamically reconfigurable to a high-speed decompression circuit or a low-speed decompression circuit, the low-speed decompression circuit having a slower decompression speed and a lower power consumption amount than the high-speed decompression circuit, said decompression unit for decompressing compressed data using the dynamic reconfigurable logic device configured to either the high-speed or the low-speed decompression circuit; a buffer unit provided to temporarily accumulate image data decompressed by said decompression unit before transferring the image data to the printer engine, so as to absorb a difference between the decompression speed of said decompression unit and a data transfer speed to the printer engine; a detection unit configured to detect a data amount of the image data that is accumulated in said buffer unit; an estimation unit configured to estimate a time required to decompress compressed image data to be decompressed next; and a control unit configured to control said decompression unit so as to configure the dynamic reconfigurable logic device to the high-speed decompression circuit, if the data amount detected by said detection unit is less than a threshold value and the time estimated by said estimation unit is longer than a predetermined period of time, and to configure the dynamic reconfigurable logic device to the low-speed decompression circuit, otherwise.