Image Number 3 for United States Patent #6801951.
A method for synchronizing nodes in a network is described that utilizes an interactive convergence technique. The technique utilizes communications protocol IEEE 1394 to broadcast each node's clock value to the other nodes in the network. Each node applies a voting algorithm to the set of broadcasted clock values to determine a voted clock value and each node's clock is set to that voted clock value. When a node's clock value is close in value to another node, those nodes are considered to be synchronized. The set of clock values to be used to determine the voted clock value consists of those nodes that are synchronized. The technique is implemented on hardware separate from the node's hardware and can be implemented on a field programmable gate array.
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