In an integrated satellite receiver, improved header acquisition techniques are described for quickly locating a header symbol sequence in a data stream substantially implemented on a single CMOS integrated circuit. To identify the location of a header symbol sequence in a data stream, a selected header acquisition technique employs a real time correlator followed by an accumulator. Once accumulation over a predetermined number of frames is finished, the largest or maximum value among the accumulated correlator values is identified. If the maximum value exceeds a threshold, it will be declared as a peak and the address associated is the peak timing.