Compression is a way to compress data to produce a file with a size smaller than its original size. Compression techniques can be performed on text data or binary, image (JPEG, PNG, ....), Audio (MP3, AAC, RMA, WMA, ... ..) and video (MPEG, H261, H263, ....). Compression Data is a way to process information using bits or other information units lower than the representation of data that is not encoded with a particular encoding system.
Data compression has a function to condense, shrink data to its size becomes smaller. With the smaller size of storage space required then less to make it a more efficient storing process, but it also can shorten the time of the data exchange.
Data compression using the run-length encoding (RLE) is a technique used to compress the data contains recurring characters. Run-length encoding (RLE) is a very simple form of data. In RLE running data (sequence data value is the same with many of the data elements in a row) is stored as the value of a single data and calculated the length of the data. This method is useful for data that contains a lot of data, such as simple graphic images (icons, line drawings, and animation). Data compression can be realized in various ways. Data compression can be designed using the VHDL language and can also use a microcontroller. Every realization of data compression has different performances. In this research, the performance was analyzed at the speed of compression. From the experiments conducted, the results of compression speed using VHDL implementation are 6.95 KB / s and microcontroller implementation is 5.34 KB/s. Based on the experimental results from the implementation of data compression using VHDL proposed in this study has a speed of 30.11% better.