The scope or eye-scan feature is responsible for providing a representation of the data-eye as seen at the slicers within the receiver. This feature leverages error-slicer hardware as well as line-rate error-accumulator hardware in the PMA. Since bit-error rates are typically very small, it is expected that an eye-scan procedure will generate a large volume of data in order to be statistically significant. This data must be distilled into a representation of the eye quality.