Patent ID: 6985467

Claim:
A method of rapidly acquiring a spreading code, used in a code division multiple access (CDMA) system, the method comprising the steps of: (a) generating a first long code and a second long code from a plurality of short codes, wherein each of the long codes has a length of N chips and each of the short codes is different and has a length less than N chips, and each of the first and second long codes include a respective one of the plurality of short codes embedded therein, (b) transmitting, over a communications channel using radio waves, the first long code and the second long code, at a first phase angle and at a second phase angle, respectively, on a carrier signal, with the first phase angle different from the second phase angle; and (c) acquiring, from the communications channel, using two phase-acquisition circuits in parallel, the first long code and the second long code from the first phase angle and the second phase angle, respectively, by searching, in parallel, N/2 chips, the first long code and the second long code.