Technical

White Paper

Overview of HP LaserJet Pro

RAM Memory Optimization
Processes and Technologies

Security Level: HP Internal and Channel Partner use only

Date written/updated: 12/2/2015

Description:
HP designs its LaserJet Pro printers to deliver outstanding printing performance over the life of the printer. In
order to accomplish this, HP utilizes various processes and technologies to optimize and enhance the many
different aspects of hardware, firmware, and software of these printers. It is important for customers to
understand that performance does not rely on any one of these aspects alone, but that they all work
together as a system, to deliver an overall outstanding printing performance.
Thus, the purpose of this document is to provide a technical overview of the processes and technologies HP
uses to optimize one of many performance aspects: the RAM memory usage and its requirements for both
color and monochrome LaserJet Pro printers. The following technologies improve memory usage and RAM
requirements for rendering jobs produced by PCL, Postscript and PDF drivers:

Optimized Compression technologies

o HP Proprietary Compression Method a predictable compression technology that can
guarantee compression ratio. The HP Proprietary Compression Method attempts to
compress objects using a lossless algorithm and monitors the compression ratio while
processing. If the ratio limit is exceeded, the HP Proprietary Compression Method
automatically switches to a lossy mode. The amount of lossy incurred is dependent on the
input data as well as the required compression ratio. Ultimately, the HP Proprietary
Compression Method will guarantee to compress an object into a supplied buffer. This is
key to Pro products low-memory solution, as the intermediate buffers are fixed in size and
deterministic. This optimization save 10s of megabytes of memory.
Memory reclaim cycles: when a low memory situation is detected, Pro product firmware goes
through several stages of memory cycles to attempt to print the job in available memory. These
memory cycles are only executed when necessary, so as not to impact performance unless
necessary.
TDMP (Time Division Multiplexed Print): This HP proprietary algorithm (Pro product exclusive)
allows a significant reduction in video pipe memory required to render color and mono jobs. This
technology reduces the RAM requirements from 96 MB to 2-8 MB (depending on the physical size of
the laser developer and the characteristics of the print).

HP CONFIDENTIAL.

Page 1 of 2

Technical White Paper

Copyright 2015 HP Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products
and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting
an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
4AA6-1605ENW, September 2015

Font data optimizations: font data has been optimized for size to reduce RAM requirements for
example, quadratic Bezier curves have been replaced with cubic Bezier curves.
Optimized rendering buffers: on Pro product devices, the firmware maintains only 1 strip buffer for
rendering and compression cycles. For other firmware code bases, and entire page is required for
rendering.
Tunable strip size: Pro product can operate with 16, 32, 64, 128 or 256 scanline high strip buffers.
The smaller the buffer, the less memory the rendering system requires; however, the smaller
buffers may contribute to performance degradation, so this is tunable per device.
Optimized color spaces: Pro product uses an RGB color model for rendering and only converts to
CMYK in the video pipe, thus reducing the RAM requirements by 1 color plane (saving approximately
327680 bytes per page)
Optimizations upstream from firmware (drivers): HP developed drivers are optimized for target
devices and reduce the memory footprint of graphic objects when possible; for instance, if an image
is to be printed at 600 dpi but the source is greater than 600 dpi, the image is sub-sampled before
sending to the printer.
Disco buffering: this technology, unique to Pro product, allows the memory allocator to acquire
disjointed buffers to satisfy memory requests. For example, if an algorithm needs 16k of memory,
but can operate in 4x4x buffers, the memory request is often easier to acquire.
Collated Jobs: For jobs that require collation, the amount of memory can be very large. When job
storage is available, the collation data will be paged out to job storage to insure the job completes
without error.

HP CONFIDENTIAL.

Page 2 of 2

Technical White Paper

Copyright 2015 HP Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products
and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting
an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
4AA6-1605ENW, September 2015