Timing Synchronization Across Ports

Beyond a shared clock, the fabric aligns for cable, filter, and feedthrough delays so all 60+ ports report on a truly common timeline.

Same clock is not enough

A common clock timestamps when a sample was digitized, but the physics event happened earlier, delayed by the sensor, the cryo feedthrough, the cable, the front-end filter, and the ADC. Different ports have different delays. Timing synchronization measures and removes these per-channel latencies so the 60+ ports report physics events on one true timeline.

Sources of per-channel delay

• Cable and feedthrough propagation delay, characterized per port.
• Anti-alias and digital filter group delay, known from the filter design.
• Pulsed-diagnostic timing (Thomson laser fire relative to the clock).
• Sensor response time for slower thermal and strain channels.

De-embedding delay

Each delay is measured during commissioning and stored in the channel's registry entry, then de-embedded so the timestamp reflects the physics event, not the digitization instant. Filter group delay in particular is corrected using the known filter response, restoring phase for the magnetics that mode analysis depends on.

Why it is load-bearing

Uncorrected relative delays would corrupt every multi-channel inference: equilibrium fits, mode numbers, fused profiles. In a 16.84 T breeder or a 26.49 T-plug burner, where the interesting physics is fast, tens of nanoseconds of uncorrected skew matter. Synchronization builds on precision timestamping and the per-channel calibrations in the registry, and it is a design specification for machines not yet built.