Wireless device having a hardware accelerator to support equalization processing

A wireless terminal that comprises:

• a Radio Frequency (RF) front end;
• a baseband processor communicatively coupled to the RF front end;
• and
• an equalizer processing module operably coupled to the baseband processor, wherein the equalizer processing module further comprises:
• an equalizer interface that receives incoming a baseband signal from a baseband processor operably coupled to the equalizer processing module, and outputs soft decisions;
• a processor operably coupled to the equalizer interface;
• an equalizer accelerator module operably coupled to the processor;
• and
• wherein processing of the incoming baseband signal to produce soft decisions is performed by the combination of the processor and the equalizer accelerator module.

A method to process a baseband signal within a wireless terminal comprising:

• receiving soft decision at an equalizer processing module;
• determining a mode of operation of the equalizer processing module from information within the soft decisions;
• and
• dividing the processing of the soft decisions between a processor and n equalizer accelerator module.