Patent ID: 7085246

Claim:
In a radiotelephone operable in a code division multiple access (CDMA) system, a method of acquiring a pilot signal, the method comprising: storing samples of a received signal; generating, during the step storing, a PN sequence; selecting a pseudo-random noise (PN) offset for a PN sequence; correlating at least a portion of the samples with at least a portion of the PN sequence to produce a correlation energy; choosing a new PN offset; comparing the correlation energy to an energy threshold; and repeating the steps of correlating, choosing, and comparing until any of: a PN sequence timing is found that produces the correlation energy at least equal to the energy threshold, or the step of comparing is performed a predetermined number of times; and wherein during the step of correlating, the PN sequence is re-generated with reference to the PN offset at a faster rate than the step of generating.