Patent ID: 7729450

Claim:
A spread spectrum signal receiver comprising: a radio front-end unit having an antenna adapted to receive radio signals from a plurality of signal sources, and a digitizing circuit adapted to downconvert and filter the received radio signals and generate sample values thereof, and a processing unit adapted to receive the generated sample values and in response thereto produce position/time related data, the processing unit comprising software implementing at least one radio signal processing function adapted to produce the position/time related data; the radio front-end unit having a primary buffer unit adapted to store the sample values from the digitizing circuit, the digitizing circuit and the primary buffer unit being integrated into one and the same integrated circuit, the primary buffer unit being further adapted to allow the processing unit to read out a first set of stored sample values contemporaneously with the storing of a second set of sample values in the primary buffer unit, the integrated circuit comprising a bit-packing module adapted to alter a relative order of at least two sample values from the digitizing circuit before these sample values are stored in the primary buffer by implying that a set of samples representing a particular phase angle are stored in a specific configuration, and said relative order alteration rendering the at least two sample values adapted for processing by the software in the processing unit.