8b/10b编码是1983年由IBM的 Al Widmer 与 Peter Franaszek 所提出，应用于ESCON，后来申请成专利。目前广受串列总线所采用。例如：IEEE 1394b、SATA、PCI Express、Infini-band、Fiber Channel、RapidIO等总线，都是采用8b/10b编码。2008年推出的USB 3.0规格书亦明言采用了8b/10b编码。

8b/10b编码的提出即是因应光纤的传输技术，8b/10b技术是将8个比特经过某种映射的机制转化为10个比特的字码，分两个部位分别进行映射的处理，分别是 5B/6B 与 3B/4B 的处理，另外「D.a.b」是数据码（D即是Data），「K.a.b」指控制码（K即是Key），a与b表示输入的原始数据。

In telecommunications, 8b/10b is a line code that maps 8-bit symbols to 10-bit symbols to achieve DC-balance and bounded disparity, and yet provide enough state changes to allow reasonable clock recovery. This means that the difference between the counts of ones and zeros in a string of at least 20 bits is no more than two, and that there are not more than five ones or zeros in a row. This helps to reduce the demand for the lower bandwidth limit of the channel necessary to transfer the signal.