Components and method are provided to efficiently process wireless communications data where prior knowledge of a specific format of the communication data is not available. A wireless transmit receive unit (WTRU) is configured for use in a wireless communication system where communication data for selected channels is transmitted in system time frames in formats selected from among a set of predefined formats. The WTRU has a receiver, a memory, a received chip rate processor (RCRP) and a format detector. The RCRP is preferably configured to despread each wireless signal of spread data received in each time frame using a minimum spreading code or other appropriate key sequence and to store resultant despread data for each respective time frame in the memory. The format detector is preferably configured to determine the number of physical channels and the respective spreading factor for each physical channel for the wireless signal of spread data.