Patent ID: 7027538

Claim:
In a communications system including a receiver device for receiving symbols communicated via a communications channel and encoded according to a Complementary Code Key (CCK) chip encoding scheme, a system for decoding received CCK encoded symbols (chips), said system comprising: a decision feedback equalizer (DFE) structure for receiving and equalizing CCK-encoded symbols communicated over a communications channel, and providing an output comprising an estimation of said received symbols, said DFE structure including a forward equalizer path and a feedback equalizer path including a feedback filter; a CCK decoder means embedded in said feedback path and operating in conjunction with a feedback filter therein for decoding said chips, said decoding of CCK chips being based on intermediate DFE outputs including those chips corresponding to past decoded CCK symbols, wherein decisions on a symbol chip at a particular time are not made until an entire CCK codeword that the chip belongs to is decoded, thereby reducing errors propagated when decoding said symbols.