Low power packet detection employing single adc

A wireless device, comprising:

• a communications interface unit configured to receive a wireless signal, the communications interface unit including:
• a first channel path having a first down-converter to generate a first analog baseband signal based on the received wireless signal and a first analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to sample the first analog baseband signal and generate first digital samples;
• a second channel path having a second down-converter that operates at a frequency orthogonal to the first down-converter and generates a second analog baseband signal based on the received wireless signal and a second ADC to sample the second analog baseband signal and generate second digital samples;
• and
• a packet detector unit configured to detect a beginning frame of packet data,
• wherein, the packet detector detects the beginning frame of the packet data based on only the first digital samples provided by the first channel path and the second channel path remains deactivated until the beginning frame of the packet data is detected.