HOCHGESCHWINDIGKEITS-RASTERBILDPROZESSOR

A pipe-lined raster image processor (RIP) contains a bus (80) and connected thereto a number of separate image processing components (30, 50, 60, 70) capable of undertaking a respective image processing task substantially in parallel with those undertaken by other of these image processing components. In addition, an arbiter (40) is also connected to the bus. The arbiter receives a request from anyone of the image processing components for service from another one of the image processing components. Then, depending upon the availability of the bus and the destination component, the arbiter defines a data path over said bus between the source and destination components, and thereafter initiates an information transfer over the bus and between these components. Once this transfer is complete, the destination component is then able to undertake its respective image processing task substantially independent of the tasks undertaken by both the arbiter and the source component. At this point, both the arbiter and the source component are free to perform other image processing tasks while the destination component is performing its respective task.