The present invention is directed to data communication systems and techniques thereof. More specifically, embodiments of the present invention provide an FEC encoder that processes an interleaved data stream and generates parity symbols that are embedded into FEC blocks. An FEC decoder determines whether to perform error correction based on the parity symbols. When performing error correction, the decoder selects a worst symbol from a segment of symbols, and the worst symbol is corrected. There are other embodiments as well.