AUTOMATIC DETECTION OF 8B/10B DATA RATES

Methods and apparatus for implementing a technique for determining a data rate of a serial bitstream using pattern recognition and for matching a clock speed of a deserializer to that data rate. In one implementation, a port for connecting a network device to a network includes a data input for receiving a bitstream from a network, where the bitstream has a data rate; a deserializer connected to the data input, where the deserializer deserializes the bitstream received via the data input, generating data characters; and a network device connected to the deserializer, where the network device receives data characters from the deserializer and determines the data rate of the bitstream by recognizing patterns in the data characters generated by the deserializer. In another implementation, a node port also sets a clock speed of the deserializer to match the data rate of the bitstream.