US Patent 7574632 Strobe technique for time stamping a digital signal

A system and apparatus generates a time-stamp to identify and record the time of an event such as an edge received in a data signal or clock signal. A set of strobe pulses can be generated by routing an external clock signal to delay elements with incrementally increasing delay values. A data signal or device under test clock signal can be applied to the input to each of a set of latches which are clocked by the strobe pulses. The set of latches can thereby capture a series of samples of the data signal or clock signal. The series of samples can be encoded as an edge time within a clock cycle. A clock cycle counter can be added to the edge time to generate the time stamp.