Data communication method

In a method of communicating a plurality of parallel data packets from a first data parallel bus to a second parallel data bus, each of the plurality of parallel data packets is separated into a first portion and a second portion. Each first portion is converted into a first serial data stream and each second portion is converted into a second serial data stream. The first serial data stream is transmitted over a first serial data channel and the second serial data stream is transmitted over a second serial data channel. The first serial data stream is converted into a plurality of first received portions and the second serial data stream is converted into a plurality of second received portions. Selected first received portions are combined with corresponding selected second received portions so as to regenerate the plurality of parallel data packets.