Patent ID: 7092629

Claim:
A method of aligning a plurality of transmission lanes with a plurality of reception lanes in a data transmission system, comprising: transmitting a plurality of control symbols and lane identifiers on a plurality of sets of the transmission lanes; time-division multiplexing the transmission lanes within each set of transmission lanes to provide a plurality of time-division multiplexed signals; wave-division multiplexing the plurality of time-division multiplexed signals to provide a wave-division multiplexed signal; transmitting the wave-division multiplexed signal across a data link; demultiplexing the wave division multiplexed signal to reconstruct the time-division multiplexed signals; demultiplexing the time-division multiplexed signals onto a plurality of sets of reception lanes; monitoring one of the reception lanes in each set of reception lanes for receipt of a lane identifier; upon receipt of a lane identifier, comparing the received lane identifier with the identity of the monitored reception lane; and rotating a lane assignment within the set of reception lanes containing the monitored reception lane if the received lane identifier does not match an identity of the monitored reception lane, wherein rotating the lane assignment includes performing link training procedures.