The Aurora 8B/10B protocol includes the native flow control (NFC) interface (This Figure) which allows receivers to control the rate at which data is received by specifying the number of idle data beats that must be placed into the data stream. The data flow can even be turned off completely by requesting the transmitter to temporarily send only idles (XOFF). NFC is typically used to prevent FIFO overflow conditions. For a detailed explanation of NFC operation and codes, see the Aurora 8B/10B Protocol Specification (SP002) [Ref 5].
