US Patent 9106936 Raw format image data processing

A raw format image representing an image received from an image capture device at an image data rate, can be compressed at least as fast as the image data rate (i.e. in real time) using compact and low cost components. The compressed image data can then be transferred across a chip-to-chip data channel to a memory system or to a host processor where it can be stored as compressed data. The host processor or other processor can read and decompress the compressed raw data and apply digital signal processing including industry-standard data compression or other image processing algorithms to the recovered raw format image without being constrained to real-time processing.