System and method of frame alignment at a receiver with power optimization mechanisms. A framer is configured to perform a frame alignment process on a data stream and enter an inactive state after frame alignment is achieved. In the inactive state, the circuits used to perform the frame alignment process in the framer can be powered down or otherwise placed in a power reduction mode. Responsive to an indication that data processing at the receiver becomes “out-of-frame” again, the framer can wake up from the inactive state and restart the frame alignment process. An “out-of-frame” indication may be generated by error detection logic (e.g., forward error correction (FEC) decoder) when it detects an excessive number of uncorrectable errors.