JP2001350715A - Data transfer control method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method for controlling data transfer between microcomputers, with which influences to be exerted upon other printing processing are reduced by efficiently transferring data concerning the transfer data of different capacities in the control of data transfer between microcomputers inside a printer with integrated plural microcomputers. SOLUTION: This data transfer control method performs switching to a data transfer control method for the unit of byte or data transfer control method based on a packet configuration corresponding to the capacity of data to be transferred.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to a data transfer control method between a plurality of microcomputers in a printing apparatus and a printing system incorporating a plurality of microcomputers for mutually transferring data.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art FIG. 4 schematically shows data transfer between microcomputers in a printing apparatus incorporating a plurality of microcomputers for controlling each other. The microcomputer incorporated in the printing apparatus includes the transmitting CPU 1 and other peripheral components (not shown), and the receiving CPU 2 and other components (not shown). 3 is a transmitting CPU 1 and a receiving CPU
2 is a serial bus. The operation will be described below.

FIG. 5 is a time chart showing a data transfer method by byte transfer. As shown in FIG. 5, in order to control the printing apparatus with two microcomputers, the operation of the CPU 2 is instructed by a command from the CPU 1,
Communication for reading the status of U2 is performed. In order to perform these processes, data of about 1 byte to several tens of bytes is sufficient. Therefore, in a conventional printing apparatus, in order to efficiently transfer data, a command and status consisting of 1 byte or several bytes are used. Was mutually transferred as data. In this case, the transmitting side sequentially transfers a command of one byte or several bytes to the receiving side one byte at a time. The receiving side checks a transfer error every time one byte of a command is received, and after one or several bytes, processes the command and transfers the status. After transmitting the command of one byte or several bytes, the transmitting side determines whether or not the command has been transferred normally based on the status response from the receiving side. When the transfer is normally performed, the next command transfer processing is performed.
If an error occurs, error processing is performed.

FIGS. 6 and 7 are examples of operation flowcharts on the transmitting side and the receiving side in the data transfer method in units of one byte or several bytes, respectively.

In FIG. 6, the transmitting side performs a command transfer process (S'1), checks the completion of the transfer of the specified number of commands (S'2), and if the transfer is completed, waits for a status response from the receiving side (S'2). S'3). When the status from the receiving side is received (S'3), the completion of reception of the specified number of statuses is checked (S'4). If the reception is completed, the status is processed (S'5), and then the step (S'5) is performed. Return to '1) to perform the transfer processing of the next command. If the transfer of the specified number of commands is not completed in step (S'2), the process returns to step (S'1) to transfer the remaining commands. Step (S '
If the reception of the specified number status from the receiving side is not completed in 4), the process returns to step (S'3) and waits for the remaining status.

In FIG. 7, when the receiving side receives a command from the transmitting side (S'6), it checks the completion of reception of the specified number of commands (S'7). 8) is performed, and a specified number of statuses are transferred to the transmitting side (S'9). Then, step (S'6)
Return to and wait for the next command. If the specified number of commands have not been received from the transmitting side in step (S'7), the process returns to step (S'6) and waits for the remaining commands.

Further, in the printing apparatus, in addition to the above-mentioned reading of the operation instruction and status, reading of several kilobytes of data in the memory managed by the CPU, data transfer for downloading hundreds of kilobytes of program code data of the microcomputer, etc. Also do. In a conventional printing apparatus, all the data transfer including these is performed by the above-described data transfer method in byte units.

[0008]

In a conventional printing apparatus using data transfer in units of bytes, transmission / reception must be performed every one byte or several bytes. It takes time to wait for a response. Therefore, due to the waiting time, it takes time to transfer a large amount of data such as data in the memory and program code data. Also, if it is necessary to transfer several kilos to hundreds of kilos of data, such as data in memory, during the printing process, it may affect the printing process such as command instructions for printing operation and status reading. In order to avoid such a problem, for example, a means for transferring a large amount of data by dividing the data or transferring the data after printing is stopped is used. For this reason, there has been a problem that it is difficult to read data and the like in the memory at an appropriate timing.

However, in recent years, printing apparatuses have been improved in image quality and speed, and a compact printing apparatus that satisfies these requirements has been demanded. In pursuit of higher image quality and higher speed, for example, a larger capacity of print data and higher speed data processing are required.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and it is an object of the present invention to reduce the transfer time of large-volume data in a printing apparatus incorporating a plurality of microcomputers or in a printing apparatus and an external apparatus ( It is intended to provide a method for controlling data transfer between a microcomputer of a printing system comprising a communication network and another printing apparatus, a host computer or the like.

[0011]

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides a transfer method in units of bytes and a transfer method based on a packet configuration. The former when transferring data,
When transferring several kilobytes of data, the transfer method is switched so that the latter is used for data transfer.

[0012]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. In this embodiment,
As shown in FIG. 1, the data transfer is described as a serial transfer method, and a data transfer method using a byte-by-byte data transfer method using a 3-byte command and a large-capacity data transfer method using a packet configuration will be described. . FIG. 1 is a time chart showing the data transfer of the present invention,
FIG. 4 is used as the configuration.

The data transfer control from the transmitting side to the receiving side is as follows.
In the default state, data transfer is performed in units of 3-byte commands according to a data transfer control method in units of bytes. This is because, for a command of one byte to several bytes, a data transfer method in units of bytes is more suitable than a data transfer method using a packet configuration. In data transfer in units of bytes, a command from the transmission side is transferred to the reception side via the serial bus 3, and the reception side performs a transfer error check process every time a 1-byte command is received, and performs a 3-byte transmission. After receiving the prescribed command, the processing for the command and the transfer processing of the 3-byte status are performed.

Here, when transferring large-capacity data such as data in a memory, the transfer time is long in the data transfer method in units of bytes. Therefore, in order to reduce the transfer time, the data transfer method is switched to a data transfer method using a packet configuration. At this time, as shown in FIG. 1, the transmitting side transfers a "large data transfer start command" of 3 bytes to the receiving side. Thereafter, the transmitting side switches the data transfer control method to the data transfer control method based on the packet configuration, and waits for a response from the receiving side. When the receiving side receives the "Large-capacity data transfer start command" from the transmitting side, it switches the data transfer control method to the data transfer control method based on the packet configuration and transfers the "data transfer preparation completion status based on the packet configuration" to the transmitting side. I do.

When the data transfer by the packet configuration is completed, the transmitting side receives the "data transfer normal completion status" from the receiving side, and the receiving side transmits the data in byte units after the transfer of the "data transfer normal completion status". By switching to the control method, the subsequent data transfer control is performed.

FIGS. 2 and 3 are operation flowcharts of the transmitting side and the receiving side, respectively, showing a method of performing data transfer according to the present invention.

In FIG. 2, the transmitting side checks whether to transfer a large amount of data (S1). If the transferred data is a command, the command is transferred in byte units (S2).
Perform The transfer completion of the specified number of commands is checked (S3). If the transfer is completed, a status response from the receiving side is waited for (S4). Receive status from receiving side (S4)
And the completion of receiving the specified number status (S5)
If the reception is completed, the status is processed (S6). Thereafter, the process returns to step (S1) to perform the next data transfer process. If the transfer of the specified number of commands is not completed in step (S3), the process returns to step (S2) to continue transferring the remaining commands. If it is determined in step (S5) that the specified number of statuses have not been received from the receiving side, the process proceeds to step (S4).
Return to and wait for remaining status.

If a large-capacity data transfer is to be performed in step (S1), a "large-capacity data transfer start command" is transferred to the receiving side (S7), and a response from the receiving side is waited for (S8). Thereafter, it is checked whether or not a response from the receiving side has been received (S9). If the reception is completed, data transfer is performed in accordance with the data transfer process in packet configuration (S10). After the data transfer by the packet configuration is completed, step (S1)
To perform the transfer processing of the next command.

In FIG. 3, when the receiving side receives a command from the transmitting side (S11), it checks the completion of the reception of the specified number of commands (S12). Is checked (S13). At this time, if the received command is a normal command, normal command processing (S14) is performed, a specified number of statuses are transferred (S15), and then step (S11)
Return to and wait for the next command. If the specified number of commands have not been received yet in step (S12), the step (S1)
Return to 1) and wait for remaining commands.

When the "large-capacity data transfer start command" is received in step (S13), data transfer is performed according to the data transfer process (S16) in the packet configuration. After the data transfer by the packet configuration is completed, the process returns to step (S11) and waits for the next command.

As described above, according to the present invention, in data transfer between microcomputers, by switching and using a data transfer control method suitable for the transfer data capacity, the transfer time of large-capacity data can be reduced.

As a generally known example of the printing apparatus of the present invention, there are an electrophotographic apparatus such as a copying machine or a laser printer using an electrophotographic system, an ink jet printer, and the like. In these printing apparatuses, the printing unit that records on paper may have a generally known configuration.

In this embodiment, data transfer between a plurality of microcomputers in the printing apparatus has been described. However, as a printing system, a printing apparatus incorporating a plurality of microcomputers and an external apparatus incorporating a plurality of microcomputers are used. A similar effect can be obtained by a method of mutually transferring data. here,
The external device includes another printing device or a host computer, and is connected to these external devices via a communication network such as the Internet or a LAN.

[0024]

According to the present invention, the transfer time of large-capacity data can be reduced by switching the data transfer control method between microcomputers in a printing apparatus incorporating a plurality of microcomputers. Therefore, there is provided a data transfer control method capable of shortening the time occupied by the microcomputer for performing the data transfer when transferring a large amount of data such as data in the microcomputer memory while performing the printing process. be able to.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a time chart illustrating a data transfer method of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a transmission flowchart illustrating an embodiment of a data transfer method according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of a receiving side showing one embodiment of the data transfer method of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a configuration diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a time chart showing a conventional data transfer method by byte transfer.

FIG. 6 is an operation flowchart of a transmission side according to a conventional data transfer method.

FIG. 7 is an operation flowchart of a receiving side according to a conventional data transfer method.

[Explanation of symbols]

Reference numeral 1 represents a transmitting CPU, 2 represents a receiving CPU, and 3 represents a serial bus.

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A printing apparatus provided with a plurality of microcomputers and a transfer means for mutually transferring data between the plurality of microcomputers, the printing apparatus comprising: a byte-based transfer method and a packet-based transfer method; And a method of switching between a transfer method in units of bytes and a transfer method in units of packets according to the capacity of data to be transferred. 2. A printing system comprising: a printing device having a plurality of microcomputers; an external device having a plurality of microcomputers; and a communication network for mutually transferring data between the printing device and the external device. The printing apparatus includes a transfer method in units of bytes and a transfer method in units of packets, and switches between a transfer method in units of bytes and a transfer method in units of packets according to the amount of data to be transferred. Control method. 3. The method according to claim 1, wherein when transferring small-capacity data, the data transfer is controlled by a data transfer control method based on a packet structure when transferring large-capacity data. Or 2
The described data transfer control method.