Patent ID: 6965606

Claim:
A data alignment apparatus, comprising: an input for receiving an input temporal series of parallel-formatted input groups of digital data units; a data aligner coupled to said input and responsive to said input series for producing an output temporal series of parallel-formatted output groups of said digital data units; an output coupled to said data aligner for outputting said output series; said data aligner including a buffer coupled to said input for storing data units of a first said input group while a second said input group is received at said input, and a combiner coupled to said buffer and said input for producing one of said output groups by combining in parallel format all of said data units stored in said buffer and selected data units of said second input group; a data path coupled to said combiner and said output for permitting said one output group to be transferred to said output without being stored in said buffer; wherein said combiner comprises a rotator coupled to said input for rotating the data units of said second input group to position said selected data units of said second input group for said combiner to parallel concatenate said selected data units with all of said data units stored in said buffer to produce said one output group; wherein said data aligner includes a controller for determining a rotation amount by which said rotator is to rotate the data units of said second input group, said controller having an output coupled to said rotator for providing to said rotator information indicative of said rotation amount; wherein said controller determines said rotation amount based on a data unit storage capacity of said buffer; and a further buffer coupled to said input and said combiner for storing said second input group while said data units of said first input group are stored in said first-mentioned buffer, wherein said controller determines said rotation amount based on a sum of respective data unit storage capacities of said buffers.