JPH01187682A - Optical character reader - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain an optical character reader capable of improving its processing speed by processing the transfer of data in parallel. CONSTITUTION:A terminal controller TC consists of a one-chip central processing unit CPU, a DMA controller DMAC1, a main memory MM, an interface controller IFC and a DMA controller DMAC2. The bus of the terminal controller TC can connect/disconnect buses BUS1 and BUS2 by a bus switch BUD SW and this is controlled by the CPU of the terminal controller TC. By activating the respective independent DMA controllers DMAC1 and 2, the data are transferred in parallel. Thus, the processing speed can be improved.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an optical character reading device, and more particularly to a multi-CPU control method in an optical character reading device used in a logistics tracking system or the like.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Conventionally, this type of optical character reading device has been comprised of an image memory, a preprocessing section, a determination section, a transport control section, and a terminal controller section that is in charge of overall control. It was connected to the bus.

Problems to be Solved by the Invention However, with the conventional connection method described above, for example, while data is being transferred from the preprocessing section to the determination section, the data transfer from the image memory to the interface section may be interrupted or the speed may decrease. There were drawbacks. In order to solve this problem, a method of connecting the preprocessing section and the judgment section using a local bus has been used, but it is difficult to use a general-purpose CPU, or the number of terminals on the printed board increases. The drawbacks are that the size increases and the cost increases accordingly.

The present invention has been made in order to eliminate the above-mentioned drawbacks inherent in the conventional technology, and therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a novel method that makes it possible to improve processing speed by processing data transfer in parallel. An object of the present invention is to provide an optical character reading device.

Means for Solving the Problems In order to achieve the above object, an optical character reading device according to the present invention includes a terminal controller that performs overall control;
In an optical character reading device having a plurality of recognition units including a preprocessing unit, a determination unit, a feature extraction unit, etc., and a transport control unit, a bus switch is provided on the bus of the terminal controller, and a bus switch is provided on the bus of the terminal controller. A bus directly connected to the CI'U and a bus separated by the bus switch are each provided with a DM controller I/roller.

Embodiment Next, a preferred embodiment of the present invention will be specifically explained with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention.

In FIG. 1, TC indicates a terminal controller.

The terminal controller TC includes a one-chip central processing unit CI'U, a DMA controller DMACl, a main memory MM, and an interface controller I/roller IFC2.
It is composed of the mouth M^controller DMAC2. The bus of the terminal controller TC is the bus switch Bus S.
W allows connection/disconnection of buses BUSI and BUS2, and this control is performed by the CP of the terminal controller TC.
+1 is done.

An image memory IM and a transport controller TRC are connected to the bus B II S +, and image data sent from the scanner 5CAN is written to the image memory IM.

The bus BUS2 includes a preprocessing section S that constitutes a recognition unit.
6 to which G, determination section DT, feature extraction section FE, etc. are connected.
0M^Controller 1-Roller DMAC2 is also connected to bus [1US2.

- The processing operation will be explained below with reference to FIG.

The terminal controller TC receives a command from the host CPU via the interface controller IFC, sends the command to the transport controller TRC, sends the form, and sends the form image to the scanner 5CA.
Take it in with N and write it to the image memory IM. Data in the character recognition area in the form image written in the image memory IM is transferred to the preprocessing section SG by the DMA controller DMACI, and a recognition start command is sent to the preprocessing section SG. After this, terminal controller 1 ~ C of roller TC
The PU uses the OM controller DMACl to transfer the image data via the interface controller IFc.

When the preprocessing unit SG completes a series of processes, it notifies the CPU of the terminal controller TC of the process. Upon receiving this notification, CPlj of the terminal controller TC writes information to be sent from the preprocessing unit SG to the feature extraction unit FB or determination unit DT to the DMA controller DMAC2 while transferring the image data.

Activate the DMA controller IIMAC2. Bus switch 8US SW disconnects BUS2 from BUSI by starting the DMA controller DMAC2, BIJS
The completion of the DMA transfer in step 2 is notified to the CPU of the terminal controller TC by an interrupt. This causes CPIJ to connect the bus switch Bus St.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION According to the present invention, the terminal computer 1
- The effect of improving processing speed can be obtained by separating the CPU bus of the rollers with a bus switch and activating each independent 0M controller to perform data transfer in parallel.

In addition, the terminal controller CI'U uses a general-purpose 1,000-lb CPU to support various peripheral LSIs.
can be selected, and an inexpensive system can be constructed.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention. TC...Terminal controller, CP11...
ICPII, DMACl...IIM controller 1, MM...main memory, IFC...interface controller, IM...image memory,
SCAM...Scanner unit, TRC...Transport controller, Roller DMAC2...DMA controller 2, SG...Preprocessing section, DT...Discrimination section, FE...Feature extraction section Patent application Representative of NEC Corporation Patent attorney Yutabe Kumagai

Claims (1)

[Claims] An input means for optically inputting an image, a means for recognizing characters from the input image, and a means for inputting an input image into another computer.
a terminal controller; a bus switch provided between a first bus and a second bus of the terminal controller; and a CPU of the terminal controller.
a first DMA provided on the first bus directly connected to
An optical character reading device comprising: a controller; and a second DMA controller provided on a second bus separated by the bus switch.