CERN IT Governance

White Rabbit

Properties3
descriptionA network that carries time, accurate to under a nanosecond — and it went into an IEEE standard.
statuscurrent
tagsnetwork, open-source

1 min read

White Rabbit

Not a data network: a timing network. Started in 2009 by CERN, GSI and partners to synchronise thousands of devices across accelerator facilities, White Rabbit extends Precision Time Protocol with hardware timestamping, Synchronous Ethernet and phase detection to reach sub-nanosecond accuracy over Gigabit Ethernet. Released as open hardware, it became the reference for the High Accuracy profile of IEEE 1588-2019 and is now sold by commercial vendors — the clearest case of the open-hardware strategy paying off outside the laboratory.

Topology

  • Part of: networks
  • Complies with: cern-ohl — released under CERN’s own hardware licence.
  • Cites: white-rabbit-site — design, origin and the IEEE 1588-2019 profile.