US 12,255,734 B2
Clock synchronization NIC offload
Wojciech Wasko, Młynek (PL); Dotan David Levi, Kiryat Motzkin (IL); Avi Urman, Yokneam (IL); and Natan Manevich, Ramat HaSharon (IL)
Assigned to Mellanox Technologies, Ltd, Yokneam (IL)
Filed by MELLANOX TECHNOLOGIES, LTD., Yokneam (IL)
Filed on Oct. 26, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/973,575.
Prior Publication US 2024/0146431 A1, May 2, 2024
Int. Cl. H04J 3/06 (2006.01)
CPC H04J 3/0638 (2013.01) 19 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
11. A time synchronization method, comprising:
connecting to a processing device;
receiving a time synchronization marker message from an application running on the processing device;
sending packets over a network;
processing by a network interface controller (NIC) the time synchronization marker message for sending via a network interface over the network to a slave clock device;
generating by the NIC a time synchronization follow-up message including a timestamp indicative of when the synchronization marker message egressed the network interface, thereby offloading generation of the time synchronization follow-up message from the application running on the processing device to the NIC; and
processing by the NIC the time synchronization follow-up message for sending via the network interface over the network to the slave clock device.