In a wireless network, a base station (BS) may send a primary synchronization signal (PSS) and a secondary synchronization signal (SSS). The synchronization signals may be used by user equipments (UEs) for cell detection and acquisition. A typical searching operation may involve first locating the PSS sequences transmitted by neighboring BSs, followed by SSS detection. Described further herein are algorithms that result in the detection of the PSS and the SSS from a BS. A method for detecting a BS generally includes sampling a received signal from receiver antennas to obtain a sampled sequence, analyzing the sampled sequence to detect a PSS in a current half-frame (HF), calculating signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) metrics based on the detected PSS, combining the calculated SNR metrics with SNR metrics from previous HFs, analyzing the combined SNR metrics to obtain timing information, and analyzing the sampled sequence using the timing information to detect a SSS.