13.2 Synchronous and Asynchronous Clocks

As the CPU and the peripherals can be in different clock domains, i.e. they are clocked from different clock sources and/or with different clock speeds, some peripheral accesses by the CPU need to be synchronized. In this case the peripheral includes a SYNCBUSY status register that can be used to check if a sync operation is in progress.

For a general description, see Register Synchronization. Some peripherals have specific properties described in their individual sub-chapter “Synchronization”.

In the datasheet, references to Synchronous Clocks are referring to the CPU and bus clocks, while asynchronous clocks are generated by the Generic Clock Controller (GCLK).