Time Stamp Formats

Napatech Network Adapters support a range of different industry standard time stamp formats, in order to work smoothly in the different operating systems supported, and with a choice of resolution to suit different types of applications.

The supported formats are:

• Free-running counter format with 10 ns resolution
• Windows format with 100 ns resolution
• Windows format with 10 ns resolution
• UNIX format with 10 ns resolution
• PCAP format with 1000 ns resolution
• PCAP format with 10 ns resolution

All counters are 64-bit counters.

The time stamps generated by the adapter hardware are assigned to the frames immediately as the frames enter the adapter, ensuring that no fluctuation of the time-stamping occurs. The assigned time stamp, whatever format used, is delivered to the application in the PCAP or Standard Packet Descriptor delivered together with the frame.