Patent ID: 7631118

Claim:
An integrated circuit (IC) device comprising: an elastic buffer having an input to receive a plurality of symbol sequences that were transmitted by another IC device over a serial point to point link, the elastic buffer to provide a plurality of buffered symbol sequences; and deskew circuitry having an input coupled to an output of the elastic buffer, the deskew circuitry to forward the plurality of buffered symbol sequences with reduced skew in response to an enable control signal being asserted, the deskew circuitry includes a plurality of deskew buffers, write pointer logic to load the plurality of buffered symbol sequences into the plurality of deskew buffers, read pointer logic to provide a plurality of read pointers to unload the plurality of buffered symbol sequences from the plurality of deskew buffers, and control logic having an output coupled to the read pointer logic, the control logic to, in response to the first instance of a first, predetermined non-data symbol appearing at an output of one of the plurality of deskew buffers since the enable control signal was asserted, a) stall the read pointer for said deskew buffer, and b) generate an instance of a second, different predetermined non-data symbol at an output of the deskew circuitry through which the buffered symbol sequence for said deskew buffer is forwarded.