An apparatus and method for detecting a burst signal. The apparatus includes circuitry that concatenates a predetermined number of samples and transmits the samples to a first programmable memory tap of a predetermined number of programmable memory taps. For each memory tap, a corresponding partial correlation is computed. A normalized sum of all the partial correlations is multiplexed and transmitted to a predetermined number of multipliers. A peak of the burst signal is determined by computing a summation of the complex multiplications of each multiplier, wherein the determined peak corresponds to a start of the burst signal.