Patent ID: 7756193

Claim:
A method for operating a Radio Frequency (RF) receiver that has an RF front end and a baseband processing module, the method comprising: during a first time interval: enabling the RF front end to receive an RF signal of the first time interval; converting the RF signal to a baseband signal of the first time interval; sampling the baseband signal of the first time interval to produce a plurality of samples of the baseband signal of the first time interval; and storing the plurality of samples of the baseband signal of the first time interval in memory; during a second time interval that differs from the first time interval: disabling the RF front end; processing the plurality of samples of the baseband signal of the first time interval to measure signal strengths of a plurality of pilot signals present in the RF signal of the first time interval, wherein the plurality of samples are processed a plurality of times, each processing time corresponding to a search for a pilot signal of a differing RF transmitter; and during a third time interval that differs from both the first time interval and the second time interval: enabling the RF front end; receiving an RF signal of the third time interval; converting the RF signal of the third time interval to a baseband signal of the third time interval; sampling the baseband signal of the third time interval to produce a plurality of samples of the baseband signal of the third time interval; storing the plurality of samples of the baseband signal of the third time interval in memory; and processing the plurality of samples of the baseband signal of the third time interval to extract data there from, wherein: during the first time interval, the plurality of samples of the baseband signal of the first time interval are stored in a shared memory that comprises pilot signal search memory; during the second time interval, the plurality of samples of the baseband signal of the first time interval remain stored in the shared memory that comprises the pilot signal search memory; and during the third time interval, the plurality of samples of the baseband signal of the first time interval are evicted from the shared memory and the plurality of samples of the baseband signal of the third time interval are stored in the shared memory that comprises interleaver memory.