Method in a CDMA receiver using hardware and software in acquisition, tracking and hosting

A system comprising:

• dedicated circuitry and a separate programmable processor system that are configured to operate together to share a processing workload for acquisition of a communication channel, wherein the acquisition of the communication channel comprises determining at least two parameters that define the communication channel, wherein one of the at least two parameters is a spreading code phase, wherein one of the at least two parameters is a frequency, wherein the dedicated circuitry is configured to determine at least one parameter of the at least two parameters, and wherein the separate programmable processor system is configured to determine at least one parameter of the at least two parameters;
• and
• an interface configured to transfer, during the acquisition of the communication channel, partially decoded data from the dedicated circuitry to the separate programmable processor system, and to transfer, during tracking of an acquired communication channel, information dependent on fully decoded data from the dedicated circuitry to the separate programmable processor system for use by an application that uses information from the acquired communication channel,
• wherein the dedicated circuitry is configured to partially decode data to produce the partially decoded data for the acquisition of the communication channel, and
• wherein the dedicated circuitry, and not the separate programmable processor system, is configured to perform a workload for tracking the acquired communication channel and the separate programmable processor system is configured to host the application that uses information from the acquired communication channel.

A method comprising:

• sharing a processing workload for acquisition of a communication channel between dedicated circuitry and resources of a separate programmable processor system, wherein the dedicated circuitry partially decodes data for the acquisition of the communication channel to produce partially decoded data, wherein the acquisition of the communication channel comprises determining at least two parameters that define the communication channel, wherein one of the at least two parameters is a spreading code phase, wherein one of the at least two parameters is a frequency, and wherein at least one parameter of the at least two parameters is determined in the dedicated circuitry and at least one parameter of the at least two parameters is determined in the separate programmable processor system;
• after acquisition, releasing the resources of the separate programmable processor system for use by an application and performing a processing workload for tracking the communication channel using the dedicated circuitry and not the separate programmable processor system;
• transferring the partially decoded data from the dedicated circuitry to the separate programmable processor system during the acquisition of the communication channel;
• and
• transferring information dependent on fully decoded data from the dedicated circuitry to the separate programmable processor system for use by the application.

A method comprising:

• sharing a processing workload for acquisition of a communication channel between dedicated circuitry and resources of a separate programmable processor system during a first signal processing phase, wherein the dedicated circuitry is configured to partially decode data for the acquisition of the communication channel, wherein the acquisition of the communication channel comprises determining at least two parameters that define the communication channel, wherein one of the at least two parameters is a spreading code phase, wherein one of the at least two parameters is a frequency, and wherein at least one parameter of the at least two parameters is determined in the dedicated circuitry and at least one parameter of the at least two parameters is determined in the separate programmable processor system;
• after the first signal processing phase, releasing the resources of the separate programmable processor system for use by an application and simultaneously using the dedicated circuitry and not the separate programmable processor system to perform a processing workload of communication channel tracking during a second signal processing phase, wherein the first signal processing phase is computationally more intensive than the second signal processing phase;
• transferring partially processed data from the dedicated circuitry to the separate programmable processor system during the first signal processing phase;
• and
• transferring fully processed data from the dedicated circuitry to the separate programmable processor system during the second signal processing phase.