Patent ID: 7613958

Claim:
In a computer system having a data communications architecture employing serializers and deserializers, a method to detect one or more errors in data communicated from the serializers to the deserializers and to resend the data in which the errors were detected, the method comprising: establishing a select number of operatively coupled communication channels between the serializers and the deserializers, each communication channel comprising its own serializer and deserializer; iteratively serializing a separate data packet in each serializer corresponding to each channel; for each bit position of each of the serialized data packets corresponding to each channel, calculating a parity bit for the bits of the serialized data packets having a corresponding bit position; encoding the serialized data packets in accordance with an encoding protocol providing error detection; communicating the encoded data packets from the serializers to the deserializers over the coupled channels, and communicating the calculated parity bits over an additional channel; detecting one or more errors in the communicated data using one or more of the parity bits in conjunction with the error detection provided by the encoding protocol; and re-communicating the data in which the errors were detected from the serializers to the deserializers.