A zero-nanosecond time synchronization platform for Gigabit ethernet links

Abstract

Ethernet is becoming the dominant data transmission technology for service providers due to its simplicity and low cost. However, the need for Quality of Service (QoS) provisioning for some time-sensitive applications drives the definition of new functionalities in Ethernet. In this work we address QoS in Ethernet by introducing a time synchronization capability at MAC level while maintaining its asynchronous and distributed architecture. We present a reconfigurable logic platform based on a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) in which we embed our custom timestamping unit (TSU). Leveraging the TSU, we have implemented a synchronization mechanism with which we achieved a best-case synchronization accuracy of zero nanoseconds. The effectiveness of the method is confirmed through several experiments. © Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering 2011.