A method and apparatus for synchronizing I/O peripherals with a CPU in an embedded system is discussed. The method involves receiving an address from the CPU in response to a read and/or write access, translating the address received from the CPU to identify a I/O peripheral to be accessed, disabling the operation of the CPU and synchronizing a memory from the CPU clock domain to the clock domain of the identified I/O peripheral. Upon completion of the read/write access, the identified I/O peripheral sends an acknowledgment, the memory is then synchronized from the clock domain of the I/O peripheral to the CPU clock domain and the operation of the CPU is then enabled.In another embodiment, if the acknowledgement from the identified I/O peripheral is not received within a predefined time duration, reserved data is sent to the CPU and the operation/access can be restarted.