Patent ID: 8923440

Claim:
Apparatus for padding and transmitting initially unpadded blocks of data, the apparatus comprising: means for deriving from a single reference clock signal first and second further clock signals having respective, different, first and second frequencies, wherein: the first frequency being suitable for use of the first further clock signal in at least some processing of the unpadded blocks in a transmitter circuitry, and the second frequency being suitable for use of the second further clock signal in at least some processing of the padded blocks in the transmitter circuitry, and bits of each of the padded blocks are assembled in parallel in the transmitter circuitry for transmission to a receiver, a deserializer configured to deserialize the unpadded blocks in the transmitter circuitry based on the first further clock signal, a register group configured to pad the deserialized unpadded blocks to obtain padded blocks, and a serializer configured to serialize the padded blocks in the transmitter circuitry based on the second further clock signal.