A protocol may be implemented in a smart transceiver device that contains the physical (PHY) and media access control (MAC) layers of a protocol stack. In various embodiments, a serial peripheral interface (SPI) based design may be used. A protocol is disclosed that may be used to provide control and data transfer to and from the smart transceiver device. In particular, an exemplary format for the protocol, the commands, and responses is disclosed. In a further embodiment, a method for mode synchronization that does not require the use of additional pins and can be accomplished with the standard SPI pins is disclosed. In another embodiment, a method that permits frame timing on the SPI bus to be restored without resetting the slave device is disclosed.