CDMA Basic Concepts

Definition
„ CDMA is a digital wireless air interface and networking
standard based on the principle of spread-spectrum
techniques, which allow multiple users to access the
system simultaneously on the same carrier frequency.
„ CDMA is a method in which users occupy the same time
and frequency allocations, and are channelized by unique
assigned codes. The signals are separated at the receiver
by using a correlator that accepts only signal energy from
the desired channel. Undesired signals contribute only to
noise.
 Spread Spectrum Techniques

„ In spread spectrum, the signal occupies a bandwidth in

excess of the minimum necessary to send the information
„ The band spread is accomplished by means of a code
that is independent of the data, and a synchronized
reception with the code at the receiver is used for de-
spreading and subsequent data recovery.
„ Using Spread Spectrum, Processing gain = W/R can be
achieved, where W is the final bandwidth of the spread
message and R is the band-width of the baseband
message.
 Advantages of CDMA

„ Increased Capacity
„ Simplified frequency reuse
„ Multipathing
„ Soft Hand-off
„ Variable rate speech coding
„ Security
„ Increases Mobile Unit Battery Life
 Capacity
• No of users that can be simultaneously supported
• Dynamic in nature
• Reverse link capacity
Depends on
¾ Distance from cell site
¾ Cell loading
¾ Traffic distribution within and outside the cell
¾ Voice activity
• Forward Link Capacity
Depends Upon
¾ Cell site Tx. Power
¾ Need to maintain a minimum S/N at each mobile
 CDMA Power Control

In CDMA, the base station communicates to the mobile

station, instructing the mobile to adjust its power up or down.
The mobile station transmits only enough power to maintain a
link.

The primary design goal of a CDMA system is for all users to

be received by the base station at the same power level, and
to make that power level as low as possible while still
maintaining a high quality call. Any more power than needed
adds unnecessarily to the overall noise level on the CDMA
channel, and cuts down capacity.
 Soft Handoff

With traditional hard handoffs, which are used in all other types of
cellular systems, the mobile drops a channel before picking up the
next channel. When a call is in a soft handoff condition, a mobile
user is monitored by two or more cell sites and the transcoder
circuitry compares the quality of the frames from the two receive
cell sites on a frame-by-frame basis. The system can take
advantage of the moment-by-moment changes in signal strength at
each of the two cells to pick out the best signal.

Soft handoffs also contribute to high call quality by providing a

"make before break" connection. This eliminates the short
disruption of speech one hears with non-CDMA technologies when
the RF connection breaks from one cell to establish the call at the
destination cell during a handoff.
 Vocoder
The vocoder used by the IS-95 system is variable rate,
which means that the output rate of the vocoder is
adjusted according to a user’s actual speech pattern. For
example, if the user is not speaking during part of the
conversation, the output rate of the vocoder is lowered to
prevent power from being transmitted unnecessarily. The
effect of this variable-rate vocoding is the reduction of
overall transmitted power and hence interference. Speech
statistics shows that a user in a conversation typically
speaks between 40% and 50% of the time. By employing
variable-rate vocoding, the system reduces the total
interference power by this voice activity factor.
 Spatial Diversity

Spatial Diversity refers to the use of two receive antennas

separated by some physical distance. The principle of spatial
diversity recognizes that when a mobile is moving about, it
creates a pattern of signal peaks and nulls. When one of these
nulls falls on one antenna it will cause the received signal
strength to drop. However, if a second antenna is placed some
physical distance away, it will be outside of the signal null area
and thus receive the signal at an acceptable signal level.
 Spectrum Requirement
„ CDMA Carrier Bandwidth = 1.23 MHz
„ Guard Band =0.27 MHz on either side
„ CDMA Channel Band:
- Forward Link - 869 – 894 MHz
- Reverse Link - 824 – 849 MHz
„ Frequency Calculations:
Transmitter Channel No. Frequency
Mobile 1<=N<=866 .03N + 825 MHz
Cell Site 1<=N<=866 .03N + 870 MHz
CDMA Carrier for Cellular band (850 MHz)
 CDMA Reverse & Forward Link Physical Layer
Interleaving is a technique for randomizing the bits in a message stream so that burst errors introduced by the
channel can be converted to random errors.
The output from the vocoder and input into the convolutional encoder is 9.6 Kbps (at full rate for Rate Set 1) The
Rate 1/2 convolutional encoder doubles the baseband rate to 19.2 Kbps for error correction.

After the baseband signal has been channel coded for error control, the signal is further transformed in order to
allow multiple access by different users. Multiple access refers to the sharing of a common resource in order to
allow simultaneous communications by multiple users, and this common resource is the RF spectrum. In CDMA,
each user’s narrowband signal is spread over a wider band-width. This wider bandwidth is greater than the
minimum bandwidth required to transmit the information. Each user’s narrowband signal is spread by a different
wideband code. All the spread wideband signals (of different users) are added together to form a composite
signal, and the composite signal is transmitted over the air in the same frequency band. The receiver is able to
distinguish among the different users by using a copy of the original code. The receiver shifts the desired user out
of the composite signal by correlating the composite signal with the original code. All other users with codes that
do not match the code of the desired user are rejected.

The IS-95 CDMA system has asymmetric links (i.e., the forward and the reverse links have different link
structures). The differences range from the modulation scheme to error control methods. In addition, each link
uses different codes to channelize individual users. The forward link uses Walsh codes, while the reverse link
uses pseudorandom noice (PN) codes for channelization.

The IS-95 CDMA system uses QPSK for both forward and reverse links. The reverse link, in particular, uses a
variant of QPSK called offset quadrature phase-shift keying (OQPSK). OQPSK differs from the conventional
QPSK in that prior to carrier multiplication, a delay of a half-bit interval (with respect to the I path) is placed in the
Q path (see Figure 3.22). This is done to avoid a 180-degree phase transition that occurs in conventional QPSK
systems.
 CDMA Forward Link Physical Layer

1.2288Mbps

I SHORT CODE

WALSH
COVER 1.2288
Vocoded
Speech Convoluti- Mbps
Interleaver
Data onal
Encoder
FIR I
19.2 Kbps 19.2 Kbps
20 msec 9.6 Kbps 19.2 Kbps
blocks
FIR Q

LONG CODE
1.2288
Mbps
WALSH CODE Q SHORT CODE
GENERATOR
1.2288Mbps
 CDMA Reverse Link Physical Layer

1.2288Mbps
64-ARY MODULATOR
1 OF 64 WALSH CODES I SHORT CODE

WALSH
CODE
63 1.2288
Convoluti- Mbps
Vocoded
Speech Data
onal
Encoder
Interleaver
307.2
FIR I
Kbps
WALSH
20 msec 9.6 Kbps 28.8 Kbps
28.8 Kbps CODE
blocks
0
T/2 FIR Q
1/2 CHIP DELAY

Q SHORT CODE

1.2288Mbps
LONG CODE

1.2288Mbps
 Encoding
The CDMA transmission process uses several codes to ensure end-to-end
communication.

„ Long Code
„ The Long Code is used to encrypt the content of the transmitted signal, and thus
ensures privacy.
„ Pilot Channel PN Code
„ The Pilot Channel PN code is used by the mobile to identify the antenna and the base
station with which the mobile is communicating.
„ Walsh Code
„ The Walsh code is used to uniquely define individual communication channels. Walsh
codes are “orthogonal” mathematical codes. As such, if two Walsh codes are
correlated, the result is intelligible only if these two codes are the same. As a result, a
Walsh-encoded signal appears as random noise to a PCS CDMA capable mobile
terminal, unless that terminal uses the same code as the one used to encode the
incoming signal.
Forward CDMA Channel
Reverse CDMA Channel
CDMA Call Processing