A method and system for a high-speed datapath for a high-performance
pattern generator such as an analog SLM for generating the image is
disclosed. The data path has provisions for completely independent
parallel data flows giving true scalability to arbitrarily high
throughput. In an exemplary embodiment areas on the SLM are assigned to
specific rasterizing and fracturing processors. There is an overlap
between fields for blending of the edges in the pattern and for
computation of interaction between features in the pattern. The datapath
has data integrity checks and a recovery mode when an error condition is
raised, allowing it to recover from most errors without creating new
errors.