This full text paper was peer reviewed at the direction of IEEE Communications Society subject matter experts

for publication in the WCNC 2008 proceedings.

Hardware Impairments on LDPC coded SC-FDE

and OFDM in Multi-Gbps WPAN (IEEE 802.15.3c)
Ming Lei, Ismail Lakkis∗ , Chin-Sean Sum, Tuncer Baykas, Jun-Yi Wang,
M. A. Rahman, R. Kimura, R. Funada, Y. Shoji, Hiroshi Harada, and Shuzo Kato

Ubiquitous Mobile Communications Group (UMCG)

National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT)
YRP-1 Bldg., 3-4 Hikari-no-oka, Yokosuka 239-0847 Japan
E-mail: minglei@nict.go.jp / minglei8998@hotmail.com
∗
Tensorcom Inc., 10875 Rancho Bernardo Rd. 108, San Diego, CA, USA

Abstract— The Multi-Gbps wireless personal area network
(WPAN) using 60-GHz is being standardized in the task group
of IEEE 802.15.3c. In the physical (PHY) layer design, there
are two competitive techniques, one is orthogonal frequency
division multiplexing (OFDM) and the other is single-carrier
frequency-domain equalization (SC-FDE), a.k.a., single-carrier
block transmission (SCBT). This paper compared the perfor-
mance of low-density parity-check (LDPC) coded OFDM and
SC-FDE under hardware impairments including analog-to-digital
converter (ADC) resolution, non-linear distortion induced by 60-
GHz power amplifier (PA), and phase noise of 60-GHz PLL
circuits. The simulation results show that SC-FDE has much
better performance than OFDM under hardware impairments
of 60-GHz devices and circuits.
Index Terms— Multi-Gbps, WPAN, PHY, OFDM, SC-FDE,
SCBT, LDPC, ADC resolution, non-linear distortion, phase noise,
60-GHz, IEEE 802.15.3c.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Responding to the ever increasing market demands for
ultra high-data-rate indoor wireless applications such as un-
compressed high-definition video streaming and flash file-
downloading, the millimeter-wave 60-GHz wireless personal
area network (WPAN) is being standardized by the IEEE
802.15 Alternative PHY Task Group 3c (IEEE 802.15.3c) [1].
This emerging IEEE 802.15.3c standard targets the data rates
of multi-giga bits per second (Multi-Gbps) for short-range
indoor applications.
In the physical (PHY) layer design, there are two compet-
itive techniques: one is orthogonal frequency division mul-
tiplexing (OFDM) and the other is single-carrier frequency-
domain equalization (SC-FDE), a.k.a., single-carrier block
transmission (SCBT) [2][3]. OFDM has been a popular tech-
nique for many years and adopted as the core technique in
a number of wireless standards. However, using OFDM over
the wide bandwidth (several GHz) at 60-GHz could encounter
serious difficulties. In contrast to OFDM, SC-FDE has many
This work was supported by the Millimeter-Wave 60-GHz WPAN (IEEE
802.15.3c) Project at the National Institute of Information and Communi-
cations Technology (NICT), which was funded by the Ministry of Internal
Affairs and Communications (MIC), Japan.
advantages such as lower peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR)
which we will elaborate on later in this paper.
For choosing the channel coding scheme, the complexity
is a priority. It is difficult for Viterbi or Turbo decoding to
support the target data rates of Multi-Gbps due to its high
complexity. Therefore, we mainly considered the systematic
block codes, such as Reed-Solomon (RS) and low-density
parity-check (LDPC) codes. LDPC and the iterative decoding
algorithm were first proposed by Gallager [4]. However they
had been silent for more than three decades until MacKay [5]
rediscovered them. Recently, intensive research work has been
dedicated to LDPC due to its excellent performance. It has
been used in IEEE 802.11n [6] and 802.16 [7] standards.
Compared with the convolutional or Turbo coding, LDPC
shows
• stronger error correction capability;
• lower decoding complexity;
• more flexible scalability.
Therefore, we considered LDPC as the high-performance error
correction coding in PHY design for IEEE 802.15.3c.
The latest PHY layer design for Multi-Gbps WPAN (IEEE
802.15.3c) can be found in [8][9]. We compared the perfor-
mance of PHY layer designs based on SC-FDE and OFDM
in [10]. In [11], we evaluated the MMSE-FDE based on
estimated SNR for Multi-Gbps WPAN.
However, the performance of SC-FDE and OFDM were not
systematically compared under hardware impairments, such
as analog-to-digital converter (ADC) resolution, non-linear
distortion induced by 60-GHz power amplifier (PA), and phase
noise of 60-GHz PLL circuits. We accomplished this work in
this paper. We followed the Selection Criteria [12] of IEEE
802.15.3c to conduct the computer simulations. The results
show that SC-FDE has much better performance than OFDM
under hardware impairments.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In
Section II, we briefly introduce SC-FDE and OFDM in PHY
layer design for Multi-Gbps WPAN; the hardware impairments
and their models are introduced in Section III; in Section IV,

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we show the simulation results; finally, we conclude this paper
in Section V.
II. SC-FDE VS . OFDM IN PHY L AYER D ESIGN FOR
M ULTI -G BPS WPAN
In Fig.1, we show the block diagrams of OFDM and SC-
FDE. SC-FDE is very similar to OFDM since both of them
perform channel equalization in the frequency domain. Their
difference is that the data detection is performed in frequency
domain in OFDM, while it is performed in time domain in
SC-FDE.
It was in [2][3] that Sari et al. first compared these two
techniques, OFDM and SC-FDE, in multi-path fading chan-
nels. In comparison with OFDM, SC-FDE has the following
advantages.
• Lower peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR);
• Less sensitive to carrier frequency offset (CFO);
• More robust against frequency-selective fading;
• Lower dependence on channel coding;
• Lower dependence on interleaving;
• Longer transmission range;
• Allow the use of less expensive power amplifier and less-
resolution ADC, etc..
SC-FDE is superior over OFDM in many aspects. Moreover,
SC (single carrier) is a hardware-friendly technology which is
already matured in algorithms, circuits and systems. Therefore,
the PHY layer design based on SC-FDE is very attractive for
Multi-Gbps WPAN (IEEE 802.15.3c).
In PHY layer design, we mainly used the popular modu-
lations such as BPSK, QPSK and 8PSK. The channel coding
we considered is the low complexity but good-performance
Reed-Solomon codes, RS(255,239,8), and LDPC codes of
different block lengths [8][9]. A rate-7/8 irregular LDPC
code, LDPC(1152,1008), was used in this work. The parity
check matrix of this LDPC code is constructed by structured
design [6], i.e., the parity check matrix can be partitioned
into square subblocks (submatrices) and these submatrices are
either cyclic-permutations of the identity matrix or null (all-
zero) submatrices.
As this paper was written, the standardization of IEEE
802.15.3c was ongoing, and the PHY parameters were being
subjected to change. The details of the latest progress in PHY
layer design, such as channelization, PHY frame structure,
PHY-SAP data rates, can be found in [8][9].
III. H ARDWARE I MPAIRMENTS
In actual systems, the link performance will be degraded
mainly by following three kinds of hardware impairments.
A. ADC resolution
The ADC resolution should be kept as small as possible
because increasing of one bit resolution approximately double
the power consumed at ADC. On the other side, ADC resolu-
tion is critical to the performance of LDPC or Viterbi decoding
since it decides the accuracy of quantized log-likelihood ratio
(LLR). The quantization bit number (B) is usually equivalent
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to the ADC resolution. B should be determined based on the
compromise among decoding performance, power consump-
tion and complexity.
B. Non-linear distortion
The non-linear distortion is mainly caused by the power
amplifier. Each kind of power amplifier has a linear zone. If
the signal amplitude goes beyond the linear zone, it will be
distorted. To avoid this distortion, the power amplifier output
power should be backed off to keep the signal amplitude within
the linear zone as much as possible. We denote the PA output
power back-off (OBO) by β in this work.
The non-linear distortion is composed of AM-AM and AM-
PM effects. By using the modified Rapp model [14], the AM-
AM effect of a 60-GHz IBM SiGe BiCMOS power amplifier
(PA) can be modeled by
Vin
FAM −AM (Vout ) = 1 ,
(1 + (Vin /Vsat )2p ) 2p
where, Vin and Vout are the PA input and output signal voltage,
respectively. Vsat =2.09V is the saturation voltage level and the
coefficient p is 1.6. The AM-PM transform function of the
modified Rapp model [14] is
q
AVin
FAM −P M (θ) = ,
1 + (Vin /B)q
where, A is -10250, B is 0.0554, and q is 3.5.
C. Phase noise
The phase noise is mainly caused by carrier frequency
offset (CFO). For OFDM system, it results in inter-carrier
interference (ICI) and common phase error (CPE). For SC-
FDE system, it leads to phase rotation and inter-symbol
interference (ISI).
The phase noise is modeled by
1 + (f /fz )2
P SD(f ) = P SD(0) ,
1 + (f /fp )2
where, the pole frequency fp is 1MHz, and the zero frequency
fz is 100MHz [14]. In our work, we denote P SD(0) as θ.
IV. S IMULATION R ESULTS
The system and simulation parameters are shown in Table I.
By using QPSK, structured LDPC(1152,1008) of rate-7/8, FFT
of 256 and GI of 64 at the symbol rate of 1.632GHz, we
can achieve the data rate of 2.285Gbps at PHY-SAP [9]. The
synchronization and channel estimation were assumed to be
ideal. FDE was based on MMSE algorithm. The output back-
off (β) of power amplifier was 3.0∼5.0dB and the phase
noise (θ) was -96∼-87dBc/Hz@1MHz. Each data packet was
loaded with 2K (2048) raw bytes. The other parameters not
mentioned in Table I followed the Section Criteria [12] of
IEEE 802.15.3c.
LDPC can be easily applied to SC-FDE system since
the calculation of LLR is direct. However, in order to use
LDPC for OFDM system, we need to consider an additional
procedure, LLR weighting. This is due to that in OFDM
 This full text paper was peer reviewed at the direction of IEEE Communications Society subject matter experts for publication in the WCNC 2008 proceedings.

Fig. 1. Block diagrams of OFDM and SC-FDE.

TABLE I
0
PARAMETERS OF S IMULATIONS 10

Channel model NLOS residential [13] −1

10
(RMS delay=6.24ns)
Symbol rate 1.632GHz −2
10
(Nyquist bandwith)
Roll-off factor 0.3235 −3
10

BER
Channel bandwidth 2.16GHz
Modulation QPSK −4
10
Channel coding Structured LDPC(1152,1008), R=7/8
FFT length (time) 256 (156.86ns) −5
10
GI length (time) 64 (39.22ns)
F−on, W−on
PHY-SAP data rate 2.285Gbps −6
10 F−on, W−off
Synchronization Ideal F−off, W−off
F−off, W−on
Channel estimation Ideal −7
10
FDE MMSE-FDE 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
E /N [dB]
b 0
Power amplifier model IBM SiGe BiCMOS PA [14]
Output back-off 3.0∼5.0dB
Fig. 2. The effects of LLR weighting (W) and frequency-domain bit
(β = Psat − Pout )
interleaving (F) on BER performance of LDPC coded OFDM (Z = 3σ, B =
Phase noise (θ) -96∼-87dBc/Hz@1MHz 8).
Packet size 2048 bytes (16384 bits)

system LLR is generated from the frequency-domain symbols
and thus is affected by the frequency-selective fading. To
compensate for this fading, LLR must be weighted by the
square module of the channel frequency response (CFR).
In Fig.2, we show the effects of using LLR weighting (W)
and frequency-domain bit interleaving (F) functions on BER
performance of LDPC coded OFDM. The quantization zone
width (Z) is set to an experiential value of 3σ; the quantization
bit number (B) is set to 8 which is adequate to make the
quantization noise undetectable. As we can observe from the
results, the frequency-domain bit interleaving is not necessary
since the bit interleaving / de-interleaving is already embedded
in LDPC coding / decoding procedures. From Fig.2, we can
verify that LLR weighting is indispensable for LDPC coded
OFDM system. Based on these results, we turned on LLR
weighting and turned off frequency-domain bit interleaving in
the follow-up simulations. For SC-FDE system, neither LLR
weighting nor frequency-domain bit interleaving is necessary.
To evaluate the hardware impairments on the link per-
formance, we follow the procedures below to conduct the
simulations.
• A. Search and determine the appropriate quantization
zone width (Z) for LLR;
• B. Search and determine the appropriate quantization bit
number (B)1 based on the determined Z;
• C. Evaluate the effects of PA output back-off (β) on BER
performance with the determined Z and B;
• D. Evaluate the effects of phase noise (θ) on BER
performance with the determined Z and B.
A. Search and determine the appropriate quantization zone
width (Z)
The quantization zone width (Z) is measured by σ where
σ is square root of the variance of the LLR values. The LLR
value outside the quantization zone will be clipped. To avoid
the influence of quantization bit number (B), we set B to 8
which is adequate to make the quantization noise undetectable.
In Figs.3 and 4, we show the effects of quantization zone
width (Z) on BER performance of LDPC coded SC-FDE and
OFDM, respectively. The optimal Z for SC-FDE is 3.0σ while
1 The quantization bit number is equivalent to the ADC resolution.

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0 0
10 10

−1
10
−2
10 −2
10

−3
10
BER

BER
−4
10
−4
10
Qnt. zone width (Z): 0.5σ
Qnt. zone width (Z): 1.0σ Qnt. bit number (B): 2
−5
10 Qnt. bit number (B): 3
−6 Qnt. zone width (Z): 1.5σ
10 Qnt. bit number (B): 4
Qnt. zone width (Z): 2.0σ
Qnt. bit number (B): 5
Qnt. zone width (Z): 2.5σ −6
Qnt. bit number (B): 6
10
Qnt. zone width (Z): 3.0σ Qnt. bit number (B): 7
Qnt. zone width (Z): 3.5σ Qnt. bit number (B): 8
−8 −7
10 10
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
E /N [dB] E /N [dB]
b 0 b 0

Fig. 3. The effects of quantization zone width (Z) on BER performance of Fig. 5. The effects of quantization bit number (B) on BER performance of
LDPC coded SC-FDE (B = 8). LDPC coded SC-FDE (Z = 3σ).
0 0
10 10

−1 −1
10 10

−2 −2
10 10

−3 −3
10 10
BER

BER

−4 Qnt. zone width (Z): 1.0σ −4

10 10
Qnt. zone width (Z): 2.0σ
Qnt. zone width (Z): 3.0σ Qnt. bit number (B): 2
−5
10
−5
10 Qnt. bit number (B): 3
Qnt. zone width (Z): 4.0σ
Qnt. bit number (B): 4
Qnt. zone width (Z): 4.5σ
Qnt. bit number (B): 5
−6 Qnt. zone width (Z): 5.5σ −6
Qnt. bit number (B): 6
10 10
Qnt. zone width (Z): 6.0σ Qnt. bit number (B): 7
Qnt. zone width (Z): 7.0σ Qnt. bit number (B): 8
−7 −7
10 10
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
E /N [dB] E /N [dB]
b 0 b 0

Fig. 4. The effects of quantization zone width (Z) on BER performance of Fig. 6. The effects of quantization bit number (B) on BER performance of
LDPC coded OFDM (B = 8). LDPC coded OFDM (Z = 4σ).

the optimal one for OFDM is 4.0σ. This also proves OFDM
signal has larger PAPR than that of SC-FDE.
We set Z to 3.0σ and 4.0σ for SC-FDE and OFDM,
respectively, in follow-up simulations.
B. Search and determine the appropriate quantization bit
number (B)
In Figs.5 and 6, we show the effects of quantization bit
number (B) on BER performance of LDPC coded SC-FDE
and OFDM, respectively. The appropriate value of B should
effectively remove the error floor and enable the system to
approach the optimal performance. We observed the appropri-
ate value of B is 5 for SC-FDE. The B value higher than
5 does not lead to significant performance improvement for
SC-FDE. For OFDM, the appropriate value of B is 7. The
OFDM signal has larger dynamic range than that of SC-FDE,
therefore it needs more quantization bit at ADC.
We set B to 5 and 7 for SC-FDE and OFDM, respectively,
in follow-up simulations.
C. Evaluate the effects of PA output back-off (β) on BER
performance
In Fig.7, we show the effects of PA output back-off (β) on
BER performance of SC-FDE and OFDM. For comparison, we
also show the performance without non-linear distortion (linear
PA). The performance of OFDM is vulnerable to non-linear
distortion due to its high signal PAPR. In contrast, SC-FDE
is very robust against non-linear distortion. This unbeatable
advantage allows SC-FDE system to use less expensive power
amplifier. Thus, the overall system cost can be reduced.
D. Evaluate the effects of phase noise (θ) on BER performance
In Fig.8, we show the effects of phase noise (θ) on BER
performance of SC-FDE and OFDM. The phase noise does
not significantly degrade the performance of either SC-FDE

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0
10
V. C ONCLUSIONS
This paper compared the performance of LDPC coded
OFDM and SC-FDE under hardware impairments including
−2
10
ADC resolution, non-linear distortion induced by 60-GHz
power amplifier, and phase noise of 60-GHz PLL circuits.
The simulation results show that SC-FDE has much better
performance than OFDM under these hardware impairments.
BER

−4
10
Therefore, SC-FDE is a very promising technique for the
SC−FDE (Linear PA)
SC−FDE (β=3.0dB) emerging Multi-Gbps WPAN (IEEE 802.15.3c) standard.
SC−FDE (β=4.0dB)
−6
10
SC−FDE (β=5.0dB) ACKNOWLEDGMENT
OFDM (Linear PA)
OFDM (β=3.0dB) The authors would like to thank Dr. Makoto Noda and Dr.
OFDM (β=4.0dB) Hiroyuki Yamagishi, SONY Corporation, Japan, for helpful
OFDM (β=5.0dB)
−8
10
discussions. The authors would also like to thank the col-
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 leagues at the National Institute of Information and Com-
E /N [dB]
b 0
munications Technology (NICT) and the Consortium for the
Practical Application of Millimeter-Wave (COMPA)2 for their
Fig. 7. The effects of PA output back-off (β) on BER performance of LDPC
coded SC-FDE (Z = 3σ, B = 5) and OFDM (Z = 4σ, B = 7). consistent support and encouragement.
0
10 R EFERENCES
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10 [2] H. Sari, G. Karam, and I. Jeanclaud, “Frequency-domain equalization
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−3
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BER

[4] R. G. Gallagar, Low-Density Parity-Check Codes, Cambridge, MA:

−4
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