Patent ID: 6901105

Claim:
A method of tracking a resolved component of a multi-path signal assigned to a rake finger of a spread spectrum rake receiver, said method comprising: variably delaying said resolved component over maximally a number of samples per chip in said complex input signal, and generating said chip delay phase adjustment signal by counting carry signals from fractional-chip counting during said counting, said fractional-chip counting causing said carry signals at a counting value representative of said number of tipples per chip; performing an early-late detection on said variably delayed resolved component so as to determine whether said resolved component arrived early or late with respect to an optimum arrival time, and generating a first pulse if said early-late detection determines that said resolved component arrived early and generating a second pulse if said early-late detection determines that said resolved component arrived late; counting said first and second pulses, said first pulse causing counting in a first direction and said second pulse causing counting in a second direction; deriving from said counting a fractional-chip delay timing adjustment signal, and feeding back said derived fractional-chip delay timing adjustment signal to adjust said variably delaying of said resolved component, and deriving from said counting a chip delay phase adjustment signal, and feeding back said derived chip delay phase adjustment signal to control a phase of a pseudo-noise generator.