A converter apparatus and method are provided that transforms an external low speed industry standard interface into an on-chip high speed serial link (HSSL). The converter of the present invention is preferably placed in close vicinity of the external interface. The HSSL operates at the system clock speed and, as a result, the HSSL interface signals can be readily treated like any other timed signal facilitating the physical design process. Because synchronization is performed once in the converter near the external interface and the signals along the HSSL of the present invention may be treated like any other timed signal, the need for interface units in each processing element of the chip to perform synchronization is eliminated. Thus, the complexity and silicon area used by the present invention is reduced. The converter enables the maximum speed for the serial interface, which is crucial in power-on-reset, manufacturing testing, and chip debugging.