Method, system, and apparatus for link latency management

An apparatus to calculate latency of a serial interface by tracking a round trip delay of a header for a point-to-point architecture comprising:

• a reference clock;
• a transmitter from a master agent, coupled to a network fabric of the point to point architecture, to enter a loop back mode of operation with a known latency from the reference clock to a header packet;
• a receiver from a slave agent, coupled to a network fabric of the point to point architecture, to align a plurality of incoming lanes from the master agent and to calculate a latency based on a clock and to insert a latency calculation into a loop back start packet data payload;
• and
• a master receiver in the master agent to calculate a latency from a reference clock to a header received from the slave.

An apparatus to calculate latency of a serial interface comprising:

• a master agent to determine a latency of its transmitter based on a reference clock and a header packet;
• a slave receiver to determine a latency based on a closest system reference clock;
• and
• a round trip latency to be calculated based on half of a total of the latency for the master latency and a master round trip receive

A system that adheres to a pTp architecture and facilitates calculation of latency for a serial interface comprising:

• a dynamic memory, coupled to the serial interface to store data for the system;
• a master agent to determine a latency of its transmitter based on a reference clock and a header packet;
• a slave receiver to determine a latency based on a closest system reference clock;
• and
• a round trip latency to be calculated based on half of a total of the latency for the master latency and a master round trip receive

A system that adheres to a pTp architecture and facilitates calculation of latency for a serial interface for outbound and inbound latency comprising:

• a master agent to determine a latency of its transmitter based on a reference clock and a header packet;
• a slave receiver to determine a latency based on a closest system reference clock;
• and
• a round trip latency to be calculated based on half of a total of the latency for the master latency and a master round trip receive

An apparatus to calculate latency of a serial interface by tracking a cycle of a packet header for a point to point architecture comprising:

• a reference clock;
• a transmitter from a master agent, coupled to a network fabric of the point to point architecture, to enter a loop back mode of operation with a known latency from the reference clock to a header packet;
• a receiver from a slave agent, coupled to a network fabric of the point to point architecture, to align a plurality of incoming lanes that were received from the transmitter of master agent and to calculate a latency based on a clock and to insert a latency calculation into a loop back start packet data payload;
• and
• a master receiver in the master agent to calculate a latency from a reference clock to a header received from the receiver of the slave agent.