Methods, systems, and apparatus for a low-latency network interface. One of the methods includes receiving a signal having encoded data. A bit stream is generated from the received signal. Bits of the bit stream are shifted into a shift register until a feedback signal generated by a synchronization decoder is received. After the feedback signal is received, output of the shift register is descrambled to generate descrambled data. The descrambled data is stored in a first parallel register when the synchronization decoder determines that the data in the shift register is aligned to a word boundary. If the data in the first parallel register is properly aligned, the output is stored in a second parallel register.
