S-72.

333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications, Autumn 2004 1

CDMA – Code Division Multiple Access

Tommi Heikkilä
[email protected]

F req u en cy

Abstract—Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) is

probably the most interesting multiple access method provided
by spread spectrum technology. CDMA refers to a multiple U ser A

access method in which the individual terminals use spread- U ser B

U ser C
spectrum techniques and occupy the entire spectrum whenever T im e
they transmit. H ig h d a t a r a t e u s e r

This paper focuses on direct-sequence spread-spectrum

principles (processing gain, spreading, de-spreading, Code
modulation and codes) and more into CDMA cellular system
fundamentals like multiple access interference (MAI), Figure 1. CDMA multiple access method
multipaths, RAKE receiver, power control and soft handover.
Also the capacity of a CDMA system is discussed.
Also CDMA applications in cellular system standards such as The development of the CDMA technique dates back to the
IS-95, CDMA2000 and Wideband CDMA are briefly early 1950s when different studies of the spread-spectrum
introduced. technologies were started. The first era in CDMA history
consisted of introducing basic ideas of the CDMA by Claude
Index Terms—CDMA, Code Division Multiple Access, Shannon and Robert Pierce in 1949. In 1950 De-Rosa-Rogoff
spread-spectrum system, direct-sequence.
defined the direct-sequence spread-spectrum method, the
processing gain equation, and a noise multiplexing idea. Price
and Green filed the RAKE receiver patent in 1956. In 1961
I. INTRODUCTION
Manuski defined the near-far problem crucial for CDMA
C DMA refers to a multiple access method in which the
individual terminals use spread-spectrum techniques and
systems. During the 1970s several military and navigation
applications were developed. [1]
occupy the entire spectrum whenever they transmit. This The second CDMA era introduced studies focusing on
feature makes CDMA different from frequency division narrowband systems. In 1978 Cooper and Nettleton suggested
multiple access (FDMA) and from time division multiple a cellular spread-spectrum application. During the 1980s
access (TDMA). In FDMA each user is given a small portion communication company Qualcomm investigated narrowband
of the total available spectrum, and in TDMA each user is CDMA techniques for cellular applications, and the result
allowed full use of the available spectrum, but only during was that in 1993 the CDMA IS-95 standard was developed
certain periods in time. [1]. Compared to third generation CDMA systems IS-95 can
Code Division Multiple Access is a modulation and be considered a narrowband CDMA system with 1.2288
multiple access scheme based on the spread-spectrum Mchip/s carrier chip rate. Third generation wideband CDMA
communication technology. It is well-established technology systems, such as CDMA IS-2000 and European WCDMA use
and applied to digital cellular radio and wireless higher chip rates than CDMA IS-95.
communication systems in the early 1990s. Capacity concerns
of major markets and efficient and economic wireless II. SPREAD-SPECTRUM TECHNOLOGY
communication needs of the industries were the most
Originally, the spread-spectrum technology has been
significant drivers for the development of the CDMA cellular
developed for military and navigation purposes because it has
technology.
some interesting characteristics that provide secure means of
CDMA is a method in which users share time and
communication in hostile environments [2]. First of all,
frequency allocations, and are channelized by unique
spread spectrum signals have LPI-properties (Low Probability
assigned codes. The signals of different users are separated at
of Interception), and cannot be easily detected by enemy
the receiver by using a correlator that captures signal energy
communication equipment due to low power spectral density,
only from the desired user or channel. Undesired signals
even lower than background noise. Secondly, spread-
contribute only to noise and interference. Figure 1 illustrates
spectrum signals have efficient AJ (Anti-Jamming) properties
the principle of the CDMA technique.
to combat intentional interference trying to sabotage
S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications, Autumn 2004 2

communication systems [3]. Nowadays, spread-spectrum signal and interference after de-spreading. Higher desired
technology has also proven to be feasible for commercial signal power leads to easier detection. It can be seen that low
applications especially for mobile communication systems. It data rates such as speech have high processing gain compared
provides an efficient multiple access method for a number of to high data rates.
independent users sharing a common communication channel
without external synchronization methods. CDMA is III. DIRECT-SEQUENCE CDMA
probably the most interesting multiple access method As mentioned CDMA is a spread-spectrum multiple access
provided by spread-spectrum technology. method. Spread-spectrum is a transmission method in which
The fundamental idea of spread-spectrum communication the signal occupies a bandwidth in excess of the minimum
is to spread a certain information bandwidth, Bi, over a wider necessary to send the information. The spreading of the signal
transmission bandwidth, Bt. The minimum of the is accomplished by means of a pseudorandom code that is
transmission bandwidth has to be wider than the information independent of the transmitted data signal. A synchronized
bandwidth. The relative rate between user information and reception with the same pseudorandom code at he receiver is
the pseudo-random code sequence can be on the order of tens used for de-spreading and subsequent data recovery. [3]
or hundreds for commercial systems and on the order of
thousands for military systems. Spread-spectrum A. Principle of DS-CDMA
communications cannot be said to be an efficient means of Figure 2 shows the multiple access capability of a CDMA
utilizing bandwidth because it needs a lot of bandwidth to be communication system. Two users are sending
efficient. On the other hand, the wider transmitted bandwidth simultaneously narrowband information signals having the
offers such a low power spectral density that it makes the same bandwidth Bi. Both narrowband signals are spread with
transmitted signal look like background noise in front end of a user specific and unique code having sufficiently low cross-
a receiver [3]. Besides LPI and AJ capabilities spread correlation with the other user’s code [3]. Code makes each
spectrum communication systems can offer further user’s communications approximately orthogonal to those of
advantages such as multiple access, efficient privacy, and other users. After spreading the two signals are transmitted
interference rejection. into a radio channel having the same bandwidth, Bt. In the
There are two basic spread-spectrum techniques: direct radio channel the two signals are mixed and exposed to
sequencing (DS), frequency hopping (FH), and time hopping impairments. Spreading the signal de-sensitizes the original
(TH). Also, a variety of hybrid techniques use different narrowband signal to some potential channel degradation and
combinations of these basic techniques. With direct-sequence to interference [3]. The signals cannot be distinguished from
spreading, the original signal is multiplied by a known signal each other and from background noise due to their low
of much larger bandwidth. With frequency-hopped spreading, powers achieved by the spreading. The transmitted energy
the center frequency of the transmitted signal is varied in a remains the same, but due to much larger bandwidth, the
pseudorandom pattern. signal spectrum is often below the noise floor of receivers [3].
At the receiver the desired narrow-band information signal
A. Processing Gain can be extracted or de-spread by a replica of the spreading
Combining a bit stream of information with an code used in transmitter for a particular user. Signals for
independent pseudo-random code sequence by simple other users are not de-spread; they are spread more.
multiplication carries out the spreading operation. One of the
main parameters of a spread spectrum communication system Narrowband signal After spreading Channel After despreading

is the processing gain, Gp. It is the ratio of the transmitted P P P

bandwidth, Bt, and information bandwidth, Bi, as presented User 1

in the following equation 1. [1] P

Bt Bi f Bt f Bi f

Gp (1) P P P
Bi Bt f
User 2
Gp is also called the spreading factor. This processing gain
or spreading factor determines the maximum number of Bi f Bt f Bi f
simultaneous users or connections allowed in a
communication system. It determines the level of protection Figure 2. CDMA multiple access principle
against multipath interference signals and signal detection
capabilities of a spread spectrum communication system. In B. DS-CDMA Transmitter and Receiver
multipath situations the receiver observes spread spectrum The basic DS-CDMA transmission and reception is
signals summed with narrowband interference. The illustrated in Figure 3.
processing gain determines the power ratio of the desired
S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications, Autumn 2004 3

Figure 3. Transmission and reception in DS-CDMA

Signal transmission consists of the following steps. A
pseudo-random code is generated, different for each channel
and each successive connection. The information data is Figure 5. De-spreading in DS-CDMA
spread by pseudorandom code. The resulting signal modulates
a carrier. The modulated carrier is amplified and broadcast. E. DS Modulation
Signal reception consists of the following steps. The carrier
Spread-spectrum techniques can be used with many
is received and amplified. The received signal is mixed with a
modulations formats, but most practical applications are
local carrier to recover the spread digital signal. A pseudo-
limited to BPSK (Binary Phase Shift Keying) and QPSK
random code is generated, matching the anticipated signal.
(Quadrature Phase Shift Keying) [3].
The receiver acquires the received code and phase locks its
Figure 6 shows an example of the generation of a BPSK-
own code to it. The received signal is correlated with the
modulated spread-spectrum signal. The basic idea is that the
generated code, extracting the information data.
signal after the spreading operation i.e. the multiplication is 1
C. Spreading if the two signals are the same, 1 or 0. Otherwise the output is
In the transmitter, the binary data is directly multiplied 0. The BPSK-signal has a 180-degree phase shift when the
(XOR-function) with the pseudo-noise sequence, which is output of the multiplication changes.
independent of the binary data, to produce the transmitted 1 bit period
baseband signal having much wider bandwidth than the
original signal. This is presented in Figure 4. 1 chip period
Data signal

Code signal

Data signal x Code signal

BPSK-modulated signal

Figure 6. Generation of BPSK-modulated spread

spectrum signal
One advantage of DS modulation is the reduced receiver
Figure 4. Spreading in DS-CDMA sensitivity to interference. This advantage is due to the fact
that the de-spreading circuit acts as a spreading circuit for
any signal to which it is not matched. [3]
D. De-spreading
In the receiver the baseband signal is multiplied with the F. Pseudo-Noise Sequences
same pseudo-noise sequence. If the pseudorandom code is not The DS-CDMA system uses two general categories of
the same or it is not in synchronization with the data there is spreading sequences: PN sequences and orthogonal codes.
no de-spreading. The PN sequence is produced by the pseudo-random noise
generator that is simply a binary linear feedback shift register,
consisting of XOR gates and a shift register. This PN
generator has the ability to create an identical sequence for
both the transmitter and the receiver, and yet retaining the
desirable properties of a noise-like randomness bit sequence.
A PN sequence has many characteristics such as having a
nearly equal number of zeros and ones, very low correlation
between shifted versions of the sequence and very low cross
correlation with any other signals such as interference and
noise [3]. However, it is able to correlate very well with itself
and its inverse.
S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications, Autumn 2004 4

Another important aspect is the autocorrelation of the based on direct-sequence spread-spectrum. All users can
sequence as it decides the ability to synchronize and lock the transmit at the same time, and each is allocated the entire
spreading code to the received signal. This effectively available frequency spectrum for transmission. CDMA does
combats not require the bandwidth allocation of FDMA, nor the time
the effects of multipath interference and improves the SNR. synchronization of the individual users needed in TDMA. A
M-sequences, Gold codes and Kasami sequences are CDMA user has full time and full bandwidth available, but
examples of this class of sequences. the quality of the communication decreases with an
Walsh codes are the most common orthogonal codes used
increasing number of users.
in CDMA applications [4]. These codes correspond to the
rows of a special square matrix known as the Hadamard A. Multiple Access Interference (MAI)
matrix. For a set of Walsh codes of length n, there consists of The detector receives a signal composed of the sum of all
n rows to form an n x n Walsh code square matrix. The IS-95 users’ signals, which overlap in time and frequency. MAI
system uses a 64 by 64 Walsh function matrix. refers to the interference between DS users and is a factor,
Walsh-Hadamard sequences can be used as spreading
which limits the capacity and performance of the system.
codes when users are time synchronous. The motivation for
the Walsh-Hadamard comes from noting that we can contruct
2n orthogonal sequences of 2n from sequences of length of 2n-
1
. Walsh-Hadamard codes will have poor autocorrelation and
cross-correlation at time offsets other than zero. [2]

Figure 8. MAI in CDMA

Hn-1 Hn-1
Hn = With CDMA systems, the same frequency channel can be
Hn-1 -Hn-1 used in the adjacent cell, as long as multiple access
interference is kept below a given level. This MAI is directly
proportional to the channel loading. MAI can be divided in
There are some issues with Walsh codes. Synchronization two parts: intra-cell and inter-cell interference. [2]
of all users is required. In a multipath channel, delayed copies
may be received which are not orthogonal any longer. B. Multipath Channel
Advantages relative to TDMA and FDMA are that no guard Multipath is the reception of multiple, possibly interfering
bands or guard times are typically required and no equalizer copies of the same signal. The tolerance of spread-spectrum
is typically required, when a RAKE receiver is used. techniques to interference extends also to a tolerance of
OVSF (Orthogonal Variable Spreading Factor) codes are multipath. With some receiver designs, multipath can even be
used in applications that combine messages having different used advantageously. [2]
data rates in orthogonal manner. The OVSF codes are defined
using a code tree presented in Figure 7. C. RAKE Receiver
C1111 Due to reflections from obstacles a wideband radio channel
C111 can consist of many copies (multipaths) of originally
C1112 transmitted signals having different amplitudes, phases, and
C11 delays. If the signal components arrive more than duration of
C1121
C112
one chip apart from each other, a RAKE receiver can be used
to resolve and combine them. The RAKE receiver uses a
C1122
C1 multipath diversity principle. It is like a rake that rakes the
C1211 energy from the multipath propagated signal components.
C121 When a wideband signal is received in a matched filter over a
C1212 multipath channel, the multiple delays appear at the receiver,
C12
C1221 as depicted in Figure 10. The RAKE receiver uses several
C122 baseband correlators to individually process several signal
C1222 multipath components. The correlator outputs are combined
to achieve improved communications reliability and
SF = 1 SF = 2 SF = 4 SF = 8 performance. [1]
Impulse response measurements of the multipath channel
Figure 7. OVSF code tree profile are executed through a matched filter to make a
successful de-spreading. It reveals multipath channel peaks
IV. CDMA IN CELLULAR ENVIRONMENT and gives timing and RAKE finger allocations to different
CDMA is a multiple access for wireless communications receiver blocks. Later it tracks and monitors these peaks with
S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications, Autumn 2004 5

a measurement rate depending on speeds of mobile station the system. That is why the powers of individual users have to
and on propagation environment. The number of available be carefully controlled. Power control forces all users to
RAKE fingers depends on the channel profile and the chip transmit the minimum amount of power needed to achieve
rate. The higher the chip rate, the more resolvable paths there acceptable signal quality at the base station. Typically, it
are, but higher chip rate will cause wider bandwidth. To catch reduces the power transmitted by the users closest to the base
all the energy from the channel more RAKE fingers are station, while increasing the power of the users farthest away
needed. A very large number of fingers lead to combining from the base station. Power control tries to set the power
losses and practical implementation problems. received from all users to be equal at the base station receiver.
A secondary reason for power control is to minimize battery
Input
consumption in the mobile.
RF signal I
Correlator
Q
Phase
rotator
Delay
equalizer
I F. Soft and Softer Handover
Code Channel
Output
This type of handover is characterized by commencing
generators estimators Q
communications with a new base station on the same CDMA
Finger 1
Finger 2 Combiner frequency assignment before terminating communications
Finger 3 with the old base station. Softer handover occurs between two
Timing and finger allocation or more cells of one base station.
Matched
filter A soft and softer handover prevent the ping-pong behavior,
and the dual base station capability is a form of diversity that
can increase capacity in a heavily loaded system and also
coverage in a lightly loaded system. [2] Soft handover helps
Figure 9. Block diagram of simple RAKE diversity to minimize with power control the interference both in
receiver uplink and downlink directions.
D. Near-far Problem V. CDMA CAPACITY
Figure 10 illustrates the near-far problem associated with
In a CDMA-based system capacity can be defined as
CDMA-based systems. The problem arises when MS A throughput of bits or as the amount of simultaneous users in
(Mobile Station) and MS B are located in a same cell with the network receiving voice and data services with certain
different distances from a BS (Base Station). If no power predefined quality targets. Interfering signals caused by users
control were applied in uplink, the MS A would transmit so to each other rise, as the amount of users gets higher in the
high power that MS B would have no connection to the BS network. A balance between maintaining connection integrity
due to too low SIR-values. The MS A would be reserving a and restricting interference level is maintained by controlling
great amount of the capacity of the cell. Power control is the power of each user so that signals arrive at their intended
implemented to overcome the near-far problem and to receiver with minimum required S/N-level. Interference,
maximize the capacity of the system [3]. It tries to control the coverage, and capacity are coupled tightly to together in a
powers of the mobile stations in the system so that the CDMA system.
received powers at the base station stay equal. It tries also to Capacity can be restricted by either transmission power
compensate the effects of slow fading and fast fading. There constraints or by the self-generated interference. In the
is no near-far problem in downlink due to a one-to-many uplink, the system reaches its capacity when a mobile station
situation. All the signals within one cell originate from the does not have enough power to overcome interference from
the network, or a predefined loading target of the network is
one base station to all mobiles.
met. In the downlink, capacity is reached when no additional
power is available to add new users i.e. base station
transmission power restrictions are met, or there are no
downlink codes available for mobile stations. The power
needed for either link is fundamentally related to Eb/No
requirements for different services.
A. Dynamic Resource
Figure 10. Near-far problem The capacity of different services can change dynamically
because Eb/No requirements vary according to chancing
E. Power Control conditions such as speeds of mobile stations, services, radio
channel, and environment. Many factors such as loading,
Power control is an extremely essential function when
spatial distribution of users, sectorization, service activity,
considering the smooth operation and the capacity of CDMA-
and power control accuracy affect the actual capacity of the
based systems. The power control problem arises due to
network. Eb/N0 can be defined as in the following equation
multiple access interference. Each user looks like random
noise to other users and causes unnecessary interference to
S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications, Autumn 2004 6

Eb W Pj Uplink Pole Capacity

(2)
N0 j j Rj I total Pj 70.000

where W is the chip rate, j is service activity factor, Rj is the 60.000

baseband bit rate of a connection j, Pj is received signal power 50.000

from the connection j, and Itotal is the total received wideband

Loss (dB)
40.000
power including thermal noise power in the base station. 30.000
Solving for P from previous equation leads to the following
20.000
equation 3. [6]
10.000

1 0.000

Pj I totql L j I total (3) 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1

W Load factor
1
Eb
Rj j
Figure 11. Uplink pole capacity
No j
where Lj can be defined as the load factor of the jth mobile Typically, load target should be maintained between 50 %
user’s connection in the uplink direction. For all users in a and 75 % because at those points the system is stable and can
CDMA network the uplink load factor can be defined as in serve users. If the load factor increases, countermeasures such
the following equation 4. [11] as the Load Control should be executed to stabilize the
N capacity. This can be done by delaying services or reducing
Lj (4) bit rates of those services used by interfering users. [6]
UL
j 1
where N is the number of uplink connections in the network. For the downlink the load factor is quite similar to the
The system has reached its pole capacity when the uplink uplink, but some parameters have to be defined. The
load factor, UL, approaches 1. In reality, there are two kinds following equation 6 presents the downlink load factor.
of interference occurring. Other users in the same cell cause Eb
intra-cell interference, and other users in other cells of the N No j (6)
(1 j) ij
network cause inter-cell interference. Inter-cell loading occurs DL
j 1
j
W
when users from other cells load a cell restricting it from Rj
using its whole power capacity for serving users in its
coverage area. The effect of inter-cell loading can be taken where j is the orthogonality factor in the downlink.
into account by the ratio of other cell to own cell interference, Orthogonal codes are employed in CDMA-based systems to
i. The uplink load factor then becomes to a formula presented separate the users. The situation would be simple if there
in the following equation 5. First part of the equation defines were no multipaths. The orthogonality would then remain
intra-cell load factor and the second part defines the inter-cell when the mobile receives the signal from the base station.
load factor. However, if there is a too short or a too long delay spread in
the radio channel, the mobile will see part of the base station
signal as multiple access interference. A too short delay
N N
1 (5)
UL (1 i) Lj (1 i) spread means that the time difference between multipaths is
W less than 0.26ms, and the RAKE receiver cannot combine
j 1 j 1
1
Eb them coherently to obtain multipath diversity. A too long
Rj j
No j delay spread means that some multipaths do not fit into the
Figure 11 presents the uplink pole capacity. The curve has measurement window of the matched filter in the RAKE
been calculated by inserting different values of load factor in receiver. If j = 1, then the base station signals are perfectly
to 10log10(1- UL) giving the loss or the interference margin orthogonal, but in real multipath radio channel the
in the link budget due to load. As the load factor comes near orthogonality factor is typically between 0.4 and 0.9; larger in
1, the interference margin is getting higher quite fast. microcells than in macrocells. The ratio of other cell to own
cell interference, ij, depends on the user location and is
therefore different for each user j. This can lead a to very
dynamically changing downlink load factor. [6]

VI. CDMA CELLULAR APPLICATIONS

Cellular wireless communications have evolved from first
generation analog techniques to the more flexible second and
third generation digital techniques that are currently
employed. Future developments are aimed at further
S-72.333 Postgraduate Course in Radio Communications, Autumn 2004 7

enhancing these digital techniques to integrate voice, VII. CONCLUSION

messaging, and high-speed data. For CDMA following This paper has introduced direct-sequence spread-spectrum
cellular standards are shortly introduced. All standards use basics and pointed out some important CDMA cellular
the basic CDMA procedures such as pilot channel, RAKE
requirements on DS-SS. DS-CDMA is probably the most
receiver, power control and soft handover presented earlier.
interesting multiple access method provided by spread-
A. IS-95A and IS-95B spectrum technology. In DS-CDMA data is scrambled by user
The IS-95A standard was finished in 1993 and first specific pseudo-noise code at the transmitter. The effect of
commercially launched in 1996 primarily for cellular voice interference can be reduced by the processing gain. Through
communication. The basic data rate is 9,6 kbps (max 14,4 RAKE receiver multipaths can be used in advantage to
kbps) and the data is direct-sequence-spreaded to a chip rate improve receiver performance by capturing the energy in
of 1.2288 megachips per second. The allocated bandwidth is paths having different transmission delays. In fading
1.25 MHz. [4] channels, by use of the RAKE receiver, a SS receiver can
The IS-95B is packet data enhancement to IS-95A like obtain an important advantage in diversity.
GPRS is to GSM system. IS-95B or as called “cdmaOne” was When considering cellular CDMA system some aspects are
commercially launched in 1999 with data rates up to 115,5 really important. Power control and soft handover must work
kbps. or there is no cellular CDMA as we know. Interference,
IS-95 uses fixed spreading code of length 64; repeating bits coverage, and capacity are coupled tightly to together in
provides lower data rates. IS-95 system uses pilot channel in CDMA systems.
downlink direction to provide synchronization, channel Nowadays systems such as CDMA2000 and its evolution
tracking, and handover functions. In the uplink direction, versions, and European WCDMA are becoming more and
orthogonal modulation is used, which permits the more robust more popular as the networks are opening commercially
noncoherent demodulation to be used. around the world. The third CDMA era is now starting.
In IS-95, all base stations use the same scrambling code
(short code) to distinguish among their transmissions, but REFERENCES
with different timing offsets. GPSS receiver in every base [1] Tero Ojanperä, Ramjee Prasad, Wideband CDMA for Third Generation
Mobile Communications, Norwood MA, USA, Artect House Inc., 1998,
station provides base station synchronization. 439 pp.
[2] Simon Haykin, Michael Moher: Modern Wireless Communications,
B. CDMA2000 1X and Future Evolution Prentice Hall 2005, pp. 258-338.
CDMA2000 1X is the third generation evolution phase of [3] John G. Proakis, Digital communications, 3rd Edition., New York, USA,
McGraw-Hill, 1995, 928 pp.
IS-95A/B and it can offer up to 307 kbps data rates. [4] Samuel C. Yang, CDMA RF System Engineering, Norwood MA, USA,
CDMA2000 can use same 1.25 MHz as IS-95/cdmaOne. Also Artech House Inc., 1998, 280 pp.
there is 1xEVDO (Data Only) and 1xEVDV (Data&Voice) [5] Jerry D. Gibson, Elaine M. Gibson, The Mobile Communications
Handbook, 2nd Edition, Boca Raton, Florida, USA, CRC Press LLC,
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Mbps. These enhancements can be compared to HSDPA [6] Harri Holma, Antti Toskala, WCDMA for UMTS, Radio Access For
Third Generation Mobile Communications, Chichester, England, John
(High Speed Downlink Packet Access) in WCDMA standard Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2000, 322 pp.
in Europe.
C. WCDMA HOMEWORK
1. a ) Construct Walsh-Hadamard sequences of length of 8 if
WCDMA increases chip rate by more than a factor of three,
and the channel bandwidth a factor of four, compares to IS-
1 1
95. The faster chip rate (3,84 Mchips/s) implies that H1 = 1 -1
WCDMA receiver can provide greater multipath resolution,
b) Spread following data signal, S, with 3rd row sequence of the
and with a RAKE receiver, this implies greater frequency Walsh-Hadamard matrix constructed in phase a)
diversity. [2]
WCDMA provides different data rates up to 384 kbps for S = [1 –1 –1 1]

circuit switched and up to 2 Mbps for packet switched data 2. Why are power control and soft handover so important features in
with OVSF codes. On the downlink, the spreading factor can CDMA cellular systems?
be from 4 up to 512 and in the uplink from 4 to 256. [6]
WCDMA employs coherent detection on both uplink and
downlink direction by using pilot bits in transmission. In
WCDMA, a specially formatted synchronization channel has
the information embedded in it that determines the timing
offset of the local base station.