1. A method of processing data of a data communication channel, comprising: receiving a plurality of serial data signals from lanes of the communication channel; de-multiplexing serial data from each of the serial data signals received from the lanes and formatting the serial data into parallel data; checking the parallel data for a start-of-frame (SOF) character; responsive to detecting the SOF character, parsing the parallel data into invalid data and valid data, wherein valid data does not include control characters; basing the parsing of the parallel data at least in part on placement relative to the SOF character; packing the parsed valid data into a group of data; presenting the packed group of data; and activating an SOF sideband signal when beginning the presenting of the packed group of data; the SOF sideband signal being separate signaling from the packed group of data and presented in association with the packed group of data for sideband encapsulation.
1. A method of processing data of a data communication channel, comprising: receiving a plurality of serial data signals from lanes of the communication channel; de-multiplexing serial data from each of the serial data signals received from the lanes and formatting the serial data into parallel data; checking the parallel data for a start-of-frame (SOF) character; responsive to detecting the SOF character, parsing the parallel data into invalid data and valid data, wherein valid data does not include control characters; basing the parsing of the parallel data at least in part on placement relative to the SOF character; packing the parsed valid data into a group of data; presenting the packed group of data; and activating an SOF sideband signal when beginning the presenting of the packed group of data; the SOF sideband signal being separate signaling from the packed group of data and presented in association with the packed group of data for sideband encapsulation. 14. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: identifying a number of the lanes in the communication channel; and configuring serial-to-parallel data receivers to receive and de-multiplex the serial data signals of the identified number of the lanes to form output characters for the parallel data.