Patent ID: 8473819

Claim:
An electronic device for receiving packetized data from a transmitting device via a communications channel, the electronic device comprising: digital processing circuitry arranged to process the data received via the communications channel to generate output data; error detection circuitry arranged to detect whether a packet of the output data is correct or in error; monitoring circuitry arranged to monitor the quality of digital processing conducted by the digital processing circuitry by monitoring signal nodes within the digital processing circuitry and detecting timing errors in signal transitions at the monitored signal nodes, and to generate digital performance data indicative of the monitored quality of digital processing based on the timing errors detected at the monitored signal nodes; and control circuitry responsive to the detection by the error detection circuitry of a packet of output data which is in error to determine, from the performance data generated by the monitoring circuitry, whether or not any timing errors were present during digital processing of the packetized data by the digital processing circuitry, and to modify the operation of one or both of the transmitting device and the electronic device in dependence on whether timing errors were determined during the digital processing.