Patent ID: 7046719

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a first signal path for signals that are encoded at a first encoding rate comprising: a first despreader; a second despreader coupled to the first despreader; a first de-interleaver coupled to the second despreader; a first branch metric determiner coupled to the first de-interleaver, wherein the first branch metric determiner outputs first branch metrics utilizing a first encoding scheme; a second signal path for signals that are encoded at a second encoding rate comprising: a third despreader; a fourth despreader coupled to the third despreader; a second de-interleaver coupled to the fourth despreader; a second branch metric determiner coupled to the second de-interleaver, wherein the second branch metric determiner outputs second branch metrics utilizing a second encoding scheme; and a combiner having the first and the second branch metrics as an input and outputting combined branch metrics of the first and the second encoding schemes.