Patent ID: 8571014

Claim:
A physical layer communication device, comprising: a local clock configured to supply time values; a receive block coupled to the local clock and configured to receive packets from a communication network and produce, depending on classifications of the received packets, timestamp values using time values from the local clock indicative of arrival times of the packets, further comprising; a receive packet classifier configured to assign one of a plurality of classifications to each of the received packets; a receive time calculator coupled to the receive packet classifier and the local clock and configured to produce the timestamp values depending on the assigned classifications; and a receive packet writer coupled to the receive time calculator and configured to write, depending on the assigned classifications, the produced timestamp values into the received packets; and a transmit block coupled to the local clock and configured to transmit packets to the communication network and produce, depending on classifications of the transmitted packets, timestamp values using time values from the local clock indicative of transmittal times of the packets; wherein the plurality of classifications includes a third classification, and wherein the receive time calculator is configured to extract received timestamp values from the received packets and configured to produce, for received packets assigned the third classification, timestamp values equal to the extracted timestamp values plus time values from the local clock indicative of arrival times of the packets plus an offset.