PRELIMINARY
IPS
™
Zx
Complete Raster Solution
Imaging
Software
Driving the Digital Lifestyle
Processors
Quatro SOCs
Solutions
Product Brief
Zoran Corporation
1390 Kifer Road
Sunnyvale, CA 94086-5305
www.zoran.com
IPS Zx, based on Zx technology developed by Zoran partner
Zenographics, is an innovative, compressed, contone, raster
printing solution suitable for use on all laser printers and
multifunction peripherals. IPS Zx is designed to run at engine
speed on both raster-only devices and PDL-enabled devices.
IPS Zx enables OEMs to build devices that run at full engine speed
without upgrading to more costly hardware or sacrificing full PDL
compatibility.
IPS Zx is a complete rendering subsystem, consisting of both an
embedded interpreter and a host PC renderer. The Zx interpreter
is integrated with Zoran’s powerful and flexible foundation
technology—IPS—enabling OEMs to develop embedded
controllers to consume jobs in the ZxStream™ format. These
lightweight, highly compressed jobs are created by integrating the
Zx rendering plug-in into an existing driver architecture, or by
using the Zx SDK to create a customized driver containing any UI
and feature set desired. IPS Zx takes advantage of powerful host
CPUs, and allows the Zx system to print at engine speed, with high
contone quality and high resolution on devices with less expensive
embedded CPUs.
Benefits
• Provides a complete high-quality color and monochrome raster
printing solution
• Achieves engine-speed performance with lower CPU, RAM, and
ROM requirements for Zx-only products, allowing for lower
controller costs
• Achieves engine-speed performance on PDL-enabled products,
with no additional hardware costs
• Enables sophisticated object-based continuous-tone printer quality
optimizations that print at higher speeds than traditional bi-level
raster solutions
• Requires no specialized hardware (such as a raster decoder) on
the controller
• Allows image processing to be performed on the host PC or on
the embedded controller
• Allows UI and feature set customization for the host driver through
the Zx SDK, or allows complete re-use of existing driver UI
through the Zx rendering plug-in
Key Features
• Faster performance than one-bit or two-bit raster, but with
superior, continuous tone output quality
• Image processing can be directly applied to the compressed
ZxStream for further performance improvements
• Support for Windows 9x, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and
Macintosh OS 10.2 and higher
• Scalable print architecture allows for higher resolutions and bit
depths, with less impact on data stream size and performance
versus traditional raster solutions
• Flexible deployment allows for image processing to be handled on
the client-side or on the embedded-side, whichever is most
efficient
• Can be combined with the other languages in IPS—IPS PS3,
IPS PDF5, IPS FIVE and IPS XLC, and IPS XPS—for complete
print functionality with minimal ROM and RAM overhead
• OEMs can use Zoran’s Quatro 4230 SOC, with IPS Zx already
embedded, or can embed IPS Zx in their own SOC
Description
IPS Zx Complete Raster Solution
IPS Zx is a complete raster solution that offers engine-speed
performance, high-quality output, highly-scalable architecture and
highly-flexible implementation. IPS Zx can be embedded into print
controllers with minimal CPU, ROM and RAM availability and still print
at engine speed because much of the processing can be performed
on the host. Additionally, IPS Zx produces high-quality output because
the Zx data stream is contone throughout the entire imaging pipeline.
IPS Zx is highly scalable and is capable of supporting engine-speed
printing for even the fastest printer engines. Finally, IPS Zx is highly
flexible and can be modified to meet the needs of any specific device
with little effort. Zx can accept RGB or CMYK, perform color
conversion and halftoning, and print at various resolutions and
multiple bit depths.
Perhaps one of the most compelling features of IPS Zx is that it can
take advantage of sophisticated embedded image processing
technology that exists on higher-end devices such as PDL printers,
copiers and MFPs. It can also be easily modified to perform quality
enhancing image processing on the PC for lower-end devices with
limited CPU RAM and embedded image processing logic. Therefore,
IPS Zx can easily be embedded into both raster-only devices and
PDL-supporting devices. IPS Zx can be easily modified to take
advantage of the host system, without the need for costly
reconfiguration of embedded controllers or additional investment in
device memory or CPU speed
09/06-MMCP
Imaging-IPS Zx-PB-1.1
ZORAN [ ZORAN CORPORATION ]
