Patent ID: 7643549

Claim:
An equalizer operable to support equalization processing within a wireless terminal, comprising: a baseband processor to receive an incoming signal and to perform pre-equalization processing that includes timing, channel, noise and signal-to-noise estimations; an equalizer interface coupled to receive input content and configuration information from the baseband processor, wherein the equalizer interface includes a configuration register, an input buffer, and an output buffer; a dedicated processor coupled to the equalizer interface and configured to run a process specified by mode bits loaded in the configuration register, wherein the dedicated processor is operable to perform compute intensive operations related to equalization on pre-equalized data associated with the input content of the input buffer and provides output content associated with resulting data to the output buffer for coupling to the baseband processor to perform post-equalization processing; and wherein processing of a baseband signal to produce soft decisions is performed by the baseband processor and the dedicated processor, in which the dedicated processor is operable to support equalization processing of 64 state EDGE 8PSK MAP, 16 state GMSK TCH MLSE, 16 state GMSK SCH MLSE, 32 state GMSK TCH MLSE, and 32 state GMSK TCH MLSE by performing MLSE operations on left side data of a GMSK burst to obtain MLSE left side decision and performing MLSE operations on right side data of the GMSK burst to obtain MLSE right side decision, separate from the left side decision, in the dedicated processor for GMSK equalization, and by preparing state values and performing MAP operations to produce left and right side decisions in the dedicated processor for EDGE 8PSK equalization, and wherein the mode bits set in the configuration register by the baseband processor selects which of the supported equalization processing is to be performed by the dedicated processor; and further wherein the timing estimation includes determining the average phase of the left and right sides of the processed baseband signal based on the soft-decisions.