Embodiments include a serial bus controller that may be coupled to an in band serial peripheral interface (SPI) link, to request a write of data and a subsequent read of the data from a slave device and in response to the request to read the data, receive a bit error report and optionally correct the bit error over the in band SPI link. Embodiments include a slave device, e.g., a flash memory device, to detect and report the bit error over the in band SPI link, where the flash memory device, in response to a request to write and/or erase data, calculates or determines an error correction code (ECC) and stores corresponding parity data. In embodiments, after receiving a subsequent request to read the data, the flash memory device accesses the stored parity data to check the ECC for a bit error and if a bit error is detected, reports the detected bit error over the in band SPI link. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.