FPGAs power printer's image processing capabilities

31st July 2015

Altera Europe

Barney Scott

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Datasheet

Altera has announced that Ricoh Group has chosen Altera Cyclone IV FPGAs to power its recently introduced line of printers, the RICOH SP 3600DN Series. Altera’s Cyclone IV FPGAs power the image processing capability of the RICOH SP 3600 Series printers, helping implement features such as 1200dpi image quality improvements, serial print speeds, and fast print speed.

In addition, Cyclone IV FPGAs allow Ricoh to significantly reduce overall costs and design time during development. RICOH SP 3600DN Series printers provide high performance while featuring a compact and modern design effective for general offices and locations with limited space.

“We selected Altera FPGAs rather than ASICs to bring more flexibility, programmability, lower cost, and lower power to this platform and future platforms,” said Naohiko Miyoshi, Group Leader, 3rd Designing Centre, Imaging Systems Development Division, Ricoh. “In addition, Altima, Altera’s distributor in Japan, provided excellent technical support that enabled the development of this printer series.”

“The features Ricoh wanted to focus on are a perfect fit for the cost-effectiveness, low power consumption, and programmability offered by Cyclone FPGAs,” said David Gamba, Director, Computer & Storage Business Unit, Altera. “Altera FPGAs offer a level of flexibility superior to ASICs and enable companies to remain competitive in their markets by delivering their products to market much faster. We are pleased Ricoh has chosen Altera.”

Altera’s low-end product offerings, including Cyclone IV, Cyclone V and MAX 10 FPGAs, are being widely adopted in the volume markets of printers, digital cameras and Multi-Functional Printers (MFPs). In addition, due to increasing end-of-life risks and non-recurring engineering costs, customers are migrating from MCUs and ASICs to low-cost, low-power FPGAs. Offering up to 150K Logic Elements (LEs), Cyclone IV FPGAs require only two power supplies for operation, simplifying the power distribution network and saving board costs, board space, and design time.