This algorithm and apparatus provides the ability to determine the amount of skew that should be injected into a high-speed data communications system comprising of a plurality of lanes comprising a data bus on a per lane basis, relative to a reference lane, for the purpose of compensating for inherent system skew. By knowing the relative amount of skew that each lane requires for alignment, an appropriate amount of skew can then be injected on each lane to provide alignment and thus compliancy with relevant standards, such as the SxI-5 standard, in terms of data skew specifications. These relative skew amounts for each transmitting lane are determined using dual loopback methods.