Novel devices for synthesizing ferrate and uses thereof are described. A digital adaptive gain control loop is used to directly modulate the VCO, and a phase-locked loop to track the frequency drift and other nonlinear effects of the VCO. Further circuit components can be arranged as discrete components on the substrate. At least a portion of the configuration-related data is quantitatively analyzed to estimate a configuration complexity of the system under evaluation. The marker functions as a checkpoint for the data transport process, and is identified and indexed at each forwarding node and receiver.