Error detection in a system having coupled channels

A computer readable medium having computer readable instructions to instruct a computer to perform a method to detect one or more errors in data communicated from serializers to 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.

A system for error detection in a data communications architecture having serializers and deseriatizers comprising:

• a select number of operatively coupled communication channels established between the serializers and the deserializers, the channels for communicating data packets in accordance with an encoding protocol providing error detection;
• a parity bit module communicatively connected to the serializers for calculating a parity bit for each bit position of corresponding bits of each of the serialized data packets being communicated corresponding to each channel;
• and
• an instruction set operatively associated with the serializers and the deserializers for providing instructions to the serializers and the deserializers to detect errors in communicated data using the communicated parity bits and resend the data in which errors are detected.

A mechanism to handle errors in data communications over a SERDES data communications architecture comprising:

• first means for establishing a select number of coupled communications channels for the communication of data between serializers and deserializers for iteratively communicating data packets in accordance with an encoding protocol providing error detection, each communication channel comprising its own serializer and deserializer;
• second means operatively associated with the coupled communications channels for calculating a parity bit for each bit position of corresponding bits of each of the serialized data packets corresponding to each channel;
• and
• third means for detecting one or more errors in communicated data using one or more of the calculated parity bits and resending the data in which errors were detected.