(R)E V O L U T I O N T O WA R D

4G M O B I L E C O M M U N I C AT I O N S Y S T E M S

TDD-CDMA FOR THE

4TH GENERATION OF WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS
RIAZ ESMAILZADEH AND MASAO NAKAGAWA, KEIO UNIVERSITY
ALAN JONES, IPWIRELESS INC

ABSTRACT
Upli

nk f
r

Base station

Com

mon

upli

nk

Base station

The present
TDD-CDMA based
3G standards are
evolving to provide
higher transmission
rates, while fully
retaining the
coverage and
mobility associated
with, and expected
from, the
present mobile
communications
systems.

This article discusses an evolutionaryTDD

mode of CDMA-based path for 3.5G/4G systems. This technology has already been the basis
of two 3G standards: TD-CDMA and TDSCDMA with a synchronous uplink. Several
techniques have been developed that allow
TDD-CDMA-based systems to transmit at rates
usually associated with 3.5G to 4G, up to 1020
Mb/s with wide area coverage. The present
TDD-CDMA-based 3G standards are evolving
to provide these higher rates, while fully retaining the coverage and mobility associated with,
and expected from, the present mobile communications systems. This article discusses how
TDD-CDMA specific techniques facilitate delivering services at data rates associated with 3.5G
and 4G. We review how TDD-CDMA can provide for asymmetric uplink and downlink transmissions, facilitate deployment of advanced
antennas for improved downlink coverage, and
enable provision of advanced receiver techniques
in base stations and mobiles. We also discuss
how these techniques affect systems capacity in
full packet-switched IP-based systems. We will
then discuss 4G TDD CDMA systems: those
with different modulation techniques for uplink
and downlink communications. These are generally based on a multicarrier mode of CDMA,
and may incorporate OFDM technique.

INTRODUCTION ON
WHAT CHARACTERIZES 4G
The communications industry has witnessed
tremendous growth in the number of mobile
subscribers and the amount of traffic. The rate
of growth is expected to continue for the duration of this decade. A typical subscriber projection is shown in Fig. 1a [1]. The total number of
world subscribers is expected to reach nearly 1
billion by 2005 and 1.8 billion by 2010. In the
more advanced markets, mobile traffic is going
to include more data communications, whereas
better coverage in the developing markets will
bring telephony services to areas where no such
services have existed.

1536-1284/03/$17.00 2003 IEEE

The traffic profile is also expected to change

dramatically in the coming years. In the developed countries, data traffic is expected to become
more than voice traffic by 2005. The ratio of
downlink to uplink traffic is also expected to rise
from slightly over 1 to over 4 and more by
2007, as illustrated in Fig. 1b [1]. Furthermore, it
is widely believed that the 4G systems will use
voice over IP (VoIP) technology for an all-IP
mobile system. It is further expected that these
will provide rich Internet content: rich voice, high
fidelity music, and interactive video services are
generally expected. The highest transmission
rates for 4G systems are envisioned to be one to
two orders of magnitude higher than the 3G, and
in the 20200 Mb/s range.
What are the technologies that can facilitate
the provision of such services? Many technologies have been proposed, and this issue discusses
many of these. Some of our findings have been
on a combination of multicarrier direct sequence
(MC-DS) code-division multiple access (CDMA)
and orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing
(OFDM). Considering the asymmetry of the
uplink and downlink traffic, it is likely that the
two links will use different modulation techniques [25]. Furthermore, an OFDM-based
technique mode in the downlink may be paired
with an MC-DS-CDMA system in the uplink.
A parallel area of research has been on the
time-division duplex (TDD) mode of CDMA
technology. This technology has already become
the basis for the third-generation (3G) TDCDMA and TD-SCDMA standards. Several factors make it very likely that TDD will be chosen
as the main duplex mode of operation for the
4G systems. An important factor is the asymmetry in the uplink and downlink traffic volumes,
and the fact that the traffic asymmetry is highly
likely to change as new services evolve. This will
make it necessary to have flexibility in assigning
relative capacity to uplink and downlink traffic.
The frequency bands in which these future systems will operate are also likely to be unpaired
and possibly unlicensed, and TDD systems are
more efficient in bandwidth utilization than frequency-division duplex (FDD) systems operating
in unpaired bands . Furthermore, the size and

IEEE Wireless Communications August 2003

1800

1400

2500
Rest of the world
Asia/Pacific
North America
European Union

Downlink
Uplink
2000

1200
1500

1000

kb/s

Millions of subscribers

1600

800

1000
600
400
500
200
0
1995

0
2000

2005

2010

Year

1997

2002
Year

(a)

(b)

2007

Figure 1. World mobile subscribers growth, and the ratio of uplink to downlink traffic.
cost of devices are going to become more of a
deciding factor. TDD systems are going to be
smaller and less power-consuming to operate
than FDD. This is mainly due to the possibility
of adaptive operation based on channel reciprocity of the TDD mode [68].
Our vision of the 4G systems is a wide-areacoverage distributed base station system with dissimilar modulations between uplink and downlink.
We believe the duplex mode will be TDD. These
will be evolved versions of the 3G TDD CDMAbased standards for services associated with 4G.
Several TDD-specific techniques have enabled
the system to provide downlink bit rates of 1020
Mb/s in 10 MHz bandwidth. These can rightly
claim to be 3.5G systems. Furthermore, flexible
uplink and downlink capacity allocation, downlink
adaptive antenna configuration, advanced detector techniques in both uplink and downlink, and
combination with MC-DS-CDMA technology and
OFDM make TDD CDMA a strong candidate
for evolving 4G systems. They provide asymmetric
capacity over downlink and uplink, and are delivered over unpaired continuous bands over many
parts of the available spectrum: from mid-100
MHz to mid-2 GHz bands. Furthermore, they are
wide-area systems, with equal capability to deliver
focused picocell and hotspot coverage.
This article is a continuation of a previous
article published in the April 1997 issue of this
magazine [8]. That article reviewed TDD CDMA
and its usage in the 3G standards. We continue
from the material of that article, this time reviewing new TDD-specific techniques that have been
developed since that publication, techniques that
facilitate the provision of 3.5G and 4G services.
In this article we build on the specific techniques
of the TDD CDMA 3G and 3.5G systems, to
higher-bit-rate systems of 100200 Mb/s associated with 4G. This article is therefore organized as
follows. We first give an overview of TDD
CDMA technology. We then develop a model for
demonstrating system user capacity and, based
on that, review the techniques that are of importance to 3.5G-4G services. We also give a summary of test results for UDP IP packet delivery
over TD-CDMA downlink. We then address systems aimed at 4G services based on TDD CDMA
to deliver bit rates of over 100 Mb/s.

IEEE Wireless Communications August 2003

TDD CDMA
Duplex transmission of information between two
users can be accomplished in several ways. The
most common method is FDD, where separate
frequency channels are used for uplink and
downlink transmissions. TDD systems accomplish two-way communications by allowing each
party to communicate over the same frequency
band by alternately transmitting and receiving
during specified periods.
Figure 2a illustrates how TDD and FDD
modes carry out data transmission over a mobile
communication system [7]. A TDD system uses
the same frequency channel for full duplex transmission and reception of signals on the downlink
and uplink. The lengths of uplink and downlink
slots are set by the system.
The lengths of slots can be unequal, or the
number of uplink and downlink slots per frame
different, for example, as specified in TD-CDMA
standards and illustrated in Fig. 2b. This results in
unequal capacity for the uplink and downlink of a
system. This is very important for cases where
traffic requirements for uplink and downlink are
different, as expected for 4G services. TDD mode
of operation is flexible in sharing the total bandwidth capacity between uplink and downlink as
traffic requirements change. In contrast, in FDD
operation, the uplink or downlink frequency
bands once assigned cannot be readily reassigned.
Why TDD? There are several main reasons for
selecting a TDD mode of operation. One is the
better bandwidth utilization in unpaired continuous bands, which is likely to be a characteristic
of bands assigned for 4G systems. Using the
FDD mode necessitates a large frequency guardband, and therefore inefficient use of the spectrum, as illustrated in Fig. 2c. Another is the
flexibility of capacity allocation in the uplink and
downlink. By selecting an appropriate ratio of
slots for the uplink and downlink [9] an optimal
allocation of resources may be made with regards
to the type of traffic and customers. FDD-based
systems cannot provide such flexibility.
An additional important advantage is channel
reciprocity between uplink and downlink. This facilitates adaptive communications in many forms

since the channel impulse response is highly correlated between the uplink and the downlink. TDDbased systems can easily give rise to several adaptive
communications techniques, including transmitter
diversity, open loop power control, and downlink
adaptive antennas, resulting in enhanced system
throughput and simplified receiver structures.

Dow

nlink

freq

uenc

Upli

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requ

ency

ban

Base station
Mobile terminal

(FDD)

Com

mon

upli

nk a

nd d

own

link

freq

uen

cy b

and

Base station
(TDD)

Mobile terminal

(a)

TDD SPECIFIC TECHNOLOGIES FOR 4G

Many of the techniques used in the TD-CDMA
standards are important in ensuring that this
standard can evolve to provide 3.5G and 4G type
services. This section discusses these technologies. In order to evaluate the significance of
these methods, we first present a simple model
for finding the user capacity of a cellular CDMA
system to illustrate system capacity gains from
using these TDD-specific techniques.
Capacity Model It is well documented that CDMA
systems are interference limited. The maximum
number of users for which the signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) target for required performance
can be delivered determines the system capacity.
The sources of interference are signals that
are transmitted in the same band and intended
for other users or are for control purposes. In
the downlink, a mobile terminal (MT) receives
its desired signal from the base station (BS) of
the cell in which it is located. This signal is interfered with by the signals from all other BSs in
the system as well as the signals the serving
BS(s) send to other users within the same cell.
In contrast, the sources of interference in the
uplink are all the MTs in the system.
Downlink Capacity We consider a CDMA system
consisting of B BSs exerting interference on a
user k among K users in the central BS, denoted
by subscript . The SIR for user k in the central
BS, 0,k, can be written as
0, k =

One frame

P0, k
( P0 P0, k ) + FDL P0

(1)

where P 0,k is the amount of power allocated to

user k of the total power available, P0, in the serving BS; FDL is the ratio of outer-cell to own-cell
interference in the downlink. The BS operates to
deliver sufficient power, P0,i, to MT i in order that
the SIR requirement 0,i is met. The capacity of
the downlink can be calculated as the maximum
number of users K that satisfies the inequality
K

P0, i P0 .

One slot
Time slot for uplink
transmission

Time slot for downlink

transmission
(b)

In other words, the capacity is the number of

users a BS can support with the limited amount
of power it has.
Uplink Capacity In the uplink, assuming perfect
power control and uniform service, the SIR of
the signal of the user k at BS can be written as

FDD in an unpaired band

Frequency
guardband
Downlink band

i =0

Uplink band

0, k =
TDD in an unpaired band
Uplink and downlink band
(c)

Figure 2. TDD and FDD, uplink and downlink slot allocation, and uplink
and downlink channel assignment in TDD and FDD modes in continuously
assigned band operation.

10

1
(1 + FUL )( K 1)

(2)

where F UL is the ratio of intercell to intracell

interference. The user capacity of the uplink is
the maximum number of users K that satisfies
the required SIR as defined by Eq. 2 [7].

ANTENNAS
The uplink and downlink interference of Eqs. 1
and 2 may be limited through usage of directional
antennas. In this method, the amount of interfer-

IEEE Wireless Communications August 2003

ence is limited to the area from where the incoming desired signal and the interference are received.
An example of such a system is sectored antennas.
The interference on the desired signal is from the
users in its sector of the cell. Ideally a three-sector
antenna multiplies the capacity of the cell by three.
Adaptive Antennas Adaptive array antennas can
direct transmissions to, and receptions from,
mobile users dynamically as they move. These
antennas are generally implemented at the base
station side, and therefore improve the performance of the uplink. Relative to FDD, in TDD
systems it is simpler to implement downlink
wave-forming based on the uplink channel estimate. The operation is illustrated in Fig. 3. Here
the same weighting parameter matrix w is used
to shape the waveforms for the downlink transmission. The effectiveness of this technique is
again a function of the accuracy of the estimates
and the fading frequency [7].
The increase in capacity of CDMA system
can be calculated in a similar way from Eq. 2,
0, k =

g aa P0, k
( P0 P0, k ) + FDL P0

x(t)

Error
signal

Array
output

Reference
signal
+
d(t)

Transmit
signal

Figure 3. Adaptive antennas in TDD-CDMA.

(3)

Transmission Diversity Transmit diversity aims to

provide uncorrelated transmission paths across a
wireless link and thus afford some level of
resilience against flat fading channels or additional frequency diversity in frequency selective channels. Within current and future releases of the 3G
Partnership Project (3GPP) technical specifications [10], transmit diversity may be employed in
the downlink with its support being optional within the BS and mandatory within the MT (Fig. 4).
The 3GPP standard allows for three flavors
of transmit diversity dependent upon the data
type to be transmitted. Synchronization channels
may support a simple open loop time switched
transmit diversity (TSTD) scheme where the
same data is transmitted alternately at different
antennas. Beacon channels may support an open
loop space code transmit diversity (SCTD)
scheme where the same data is spread with different channelization codes and then transmitted
separately on different antennas. The third
transmit diversity scheme employed is closed
loop. Unlike FDD, TDD exploits the reciprocity
of the channel to determine complex weights for
the transmission of the same data at different
antennas. This scheme maybe employed in the
transmission of downlink shared and dedicated
channels. The closed loop transmit diversity
scheme is pictured below with the complex
weights w = [w 1 , w 2 ] T chosen to maximize the
function P = wH[h1, h2]H[h1, h2]w.
An alternative closed-loop method is selective
transmit diversity (STD) [12]. In this technique a
base station receives signals from a mobile via the
receive diversity branches. Based on the uplink
channel estimation metrics and the channel
reciprocity a decision is made at the base station
on which transmitter should be used for downlink
transmissions. For a two-antenna STD the complex weight vector is given by the following rule:

wn

Weight control

RF

FIR

resulting in reduced interference and increased

capacity in the downlink.

IEEE Wireless Communications August 2003

w1 w2

y(t)

h1

w1
FIR

RF
h2

w2
Uplink channel
estimation

Figure 4. Transmission diversity.

IF Antenna 1
w = [1,0]T
ELSE
w = [0,1]T
END
Transmit diversity effectively removes the complexity from the MT and places it in the network.
Under STD operation the transmission power
from the BS is effectively reduced, which in turn
reduces the intercell interference seen by the surrounding cells. We reflect this improvement by
modifying Eq. 1 with a gain factor, , such that
0, k =

P0, k
( P0 P 0, k ) + FDL P0

(4)

where 1 is the average reduction in BS transmit

power and is a function of the channel conditions.
A natural progression from transmit diversity
is to employ multiple antennas at both ends of
the wireless link. Such a scheme is commonly
referred to as multiple-input multiple-output
(MIMO) and has the potential to offer considerable improvements in system capacity. In fact,
under certain conditions it is theoretically possible for the capacity to increase linearly with the
minimum of the number of transmit and receive
antennas [11].

11

generalized multiuser detector that can cope

with both inter- and intracell interference is
rapidly becoming a reality.
The uplink SIR ratio may therefore be significantly improved if the intracell multiuser interference can be totally removed. This will modify
Eq. 2 into

Aggregate throughput (downlink UDP)

6

Throughput (Mb/s)

5
4
3

0, k =

2
1
0
0

20

40

60

80

100

Number of simultaneous UE

Figure 5. Aggregate Node B downlink UDP throughput with no intercell interference.

Joint Detection The burst structure employed in

the 3GPP TDD mode lends itself to the relatively
simple implementation of block detection techniques, in particular block detection equalizers or
joint detectors [12]. For instance, we can write
the received samples of a burst in matrix form as
(5)

where d is a vector of multiplexed users symbols,

A is a block-banded channel/code/pulse shaping
convolution matrix, and n is a vector of additive
complex noise samples of zero mean and covariance matrix Rn = E{nnH} [14]. Under the assumption that the noise is white with variance, the
minimum mean square error (MMSE) block linear
equalizer solution to symbol estimation is given by
^
d
= (AHA + 2I)1 AHr = X1x. (6)

Downlink Specifics Under the condition that no

transmit diversity is used, all of the channelization
codes originate from the same BS antenna; as
such, the same propagation channel applies to all
channelization codes. Here a single user detector
can be employed, which consists of a channel
equalizer and a code matched filter. The equalizer function is used to remove the channel time
dispersion, and thus restores the orthogonality of
the channelization codes. Since the codes are now
nominally orthogonal, a simple code matched filter can be used to extract the data symbols [12].
The multiuser detection (MUD) algorithms
employed in 3G systems are designed with intracell interference in mind, and therefore treat the
intercell interference component as an additional noise term. Recent developments in 3GPP,
such as high-speed downlink packet access
(HSDPA), aim to improve cell throughputs by
optimizing the user data rate to the propagation
channel. In order to achieve high system
throughputs at the cell edge, alternative techniques and technologies are required. It is likely
that 4G systems will enable high system throughputs not only at the interior of the cell, but also
at the cell edge. An alternative to antenna technology is the use of advanced receivers. Given
recent advances in TD-CDMA MUD technology
and implementation, the possibility of having a

12

(7)

In case of perfect MUD in the downlink,

intracell interference can be totally removed.
This will result in an increase of SIR at mobile
receivers. This will modify Eq. 1 to
0, k =

P0, k
FDL P0

(8)

which significantly improves the SIR. If intercell

interference can also be reduced, Eqs. 8 and 9
are further enhanced.

ADVANCED RECEIVERS WITH

MULTIUSER DETECTION

r = Ad + n

1
( K 1) FUL

PROVISION OF
HIGHER DOWNLINK DATA RATES
Two areas of research in WCDMA systems have
concentrated on delivering higher data rates
within the present standards. These have been
referred to as 3.5G. Although these are equally
valid for both FDD and TDD modes, they do
bridge the transmission rate gap between 3G
TDD CDMA and 4G TDD CDMA.

HSDPA
HSDPA [10, 13] increases peak rate to an individual user and cell throughput. Peak rates of 5
Mb/s or higher are feasible with HSDPA. The
three principal techniques employed in HSDPA
are adaptive modulation and coding, hybrid
automatic repeat request (HARQ), and fast
scheduling. All these techniques can benefit
from channel reciprocity and adaptive communications provided by the TDD mode.
A channel quality indication of the uplink is
used in adaptive modulation and coding (AMC).
The channel quality indication allows the BS to
optimize resource usage by varying the coding rate
and modulation applied for transmissions to a user.
The channel coding applied to HSDPA is based on
1/3 rate turbo coding. The BS can vary the modulation and the channel coding by rate matching
(puncturing or repetition). The goal of adaptive
coding and modulation is to choose a coding rate
and modulation just sufficient to achieve the target
block error rate at the user equipment.
HARQ within HSDPA supports combining
and incremental redundancy. By combining
retransmissions with previous transmissions,
retransmissions can use less physical resources
(e.g., more puncturing may be applied in the
rate matcher) than if retransmissions had to be
self-decodable. Support of parallel HARQ processes enables high throughput to be maintained
with realistic system latencies.
Three additional physical channels are
defined in HSDPA. The high-speed physical
downlink link shared channel (HS-PDSCH) carries transport blocks (higher layer data). Alloca-

IEEE Wireless Communications August 2003

HIGHER CHIP RATE AND BANDWIDTH

An analysis is being undertaken in the 3GPP of
higher chip rates for Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) Terrestrial Radio
Access (UTRA) TDD evolution [14]. The analysis will initially focus on the chip rate of 7.68
Mchips/s, and a reference configuration is
defined at this chip rate.
The reference configuration allows the use of
spreading factors 1 and 32 in the downlink
(spreading factor 32 is also supported in the
uplink). Use of the higher spreading factor retains
the granularity of resource between 3.84 Mchips/s
and 7.68 Mchips/s Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) cell sites and the TD-CDMA
system was co-sited with existing GSM equipment.
With these existing GSM cell sites it was found
that the coverage matched that of the GSM system, providing a cell radius of 1.25 km in-building
and 2.5 km outdoors at the street level.
Figure 5 shows the measured aggregate downlink throughput averaged over multiple test runs.
For each test run, there is a mixture of line-ofsight (LOS) and non-LOS MT locations
In this test there is no intercell interference,
and the maximum number of MTs is 99. For UDP
it can be seen that the throughput remains nominally constant at 5 Mb/s as the number of MTs is
increased to 99. Figure 6 shows the average per
user UDP throughput as the number of MTs is
increased for the no intercell interference case.
Figure 7 shows the performance when intercell interference is present. Here the surrounding
sectors are fully loaded. Using the same locations
and parameters as the no interference case, the
aggregate sector throughput for 12, 36, and 72
MTs is shown. For comparison, the no interference case has been included. For 12 MTs the
aggregate throughput is 5.1 Mb/s, and for 36 and
72 MTs it is 4.4 Mb/s and 4 Mb/s, respectively.

FROM 3.5G TO 4G
We have described an evolutionary path from
the 3G standards to what can be called a 3.5G
system. UTRA TDD mode as standardized by
3GPP in Release 5 is capable of providing 10.2
Mb/s in 12 downlink time slots at 3.84 Mchips/s.
Moreover, more than 20 Mb/s is possible with a
7.68 Mchips/s chip rate, which is delivered in a
10 MHz bandwidth. A corresponding increase in
bandwidth can increase the throughput by a
respective factor. An example is the 2.3 GHz
band, in which a continuous 100 MHz bandwidth

IEEE Wireless Communications August 2003

Per user throughput (downlink UDP)

Throughput (Mb/s)

1000
800
600
400
200
0
0

20

40

60

80

100

Number of simultaneous UE

Figure 6. Average per user downlink UDP throughput with no intercell interference.

Aggregate throughput (downlink UDP)

6
No interference
Throughput (Mb/s)

tion information is sent from the base station to

the user equipment in the shared control channel for HS-DSCH (HS-SCCH). The allocation
information in HS-SCCH contains information
on the physical channels used for HS-PDSCH,
and the modulation and coding applied to HSPDSCH. The shared information channel for
HS-DSCH (HS-SICH) is an uplink channel that
sends channel quality information and acknowledgment (ACK)/negative ACK (NACK) reports
on HS-DSCH from the user to the BS.
These ACK/NACK signals can be used by the
downlink transmitter to estimate the channel and
adaptively shape the future transmission. We will
see below how this is useful in 4G systems.

5
4
N=1, 100%, loading
3
2
1
0
0

20

40

60

80

100

Number of simultaneous UE

Figure 7. Downlink UDP throughput with N = 1 interference.

has been assigned for the future Mobile IP services in Korea and China.
However, as the bandwidth increases, frequency selective fading effects tend to increase,
resulting in the appearance of an error floor.
Moreover, building devices to operate over such
a wide band is (presently) not practical. Therefore, it has been proposed to use multicarrier
(MC) CDMA systems, where the total available
frequency band is divided into subbands. The
transmissions are carried out in parallel over the
subbands, delivering a total throughput equal to
the product of the number of subbands and a
single subbands throughput.
The following MC transmission technologies
have been proposed for 4G systems. One is the
DS-MC-CDMA as a simple extension of the present CDMA techniques, in which each sub-band
operates as an independent direct sequence (DS)
CDMA system. Two other methods use orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) and
achieve a near doubling of system capacity. These
are MC-OFDM and MC-OFCDM. Since (we
expect) these techniques are well discussed in
another article of this issue, we only discuss the
usefulness of the TDD mode of operation to
these 4G technologies. It will be very likely that
the downlink transmission will follow some form
of OFDM, as this is capable of improving capacity. However, uplink will likely be an MC system
without an OFDM component as lack of synchronous multiuser transmission in the uplink

13

Power
Frequency
User 1

User 2

User 3
Transmitted signal (MS)

makes such implementation difficult. We refer to

these as dissimilar uplink/downlink systems.
These systems are highly likely to use TDD as
their mode of duplex transmission. The same
characteristics that make TDD a leading contender for 3.5G systems are expected to be important reasons for making TDD a significant part of
the 4G standards. These are flexible allocation of
capacity in up and downlink, as well as frequency
utilization efficiency in continuous bands, where
4G systems are most likely to be located.
Furthermore, adaptive communications in the
downlink and uplink due to fading reciprocity
provides for the following methods.

Faded signal

SUBCARRIER SELECTION WITH

VARIABLE SPREADING FACTOR

Multiple users

Received signal (BS)

(a) Without selection

(b) With selection

(a)

100

BER

Select 1/16
Select 2/16
Select 4/16
Select 8/16
Non select

MC-DS-CDMA, in which the bandwidth is divided into several (non-OFDM) subcarriers, is an

ideal method for uplink communication where
synchronous transmission is not possible. In frequency selective fading characteristics of wideband channels (typical 100 MHz associated with
4G), each subcarrier of MC/DS-CDMA system
is typically affected by different attenuation.
From multiple access interference (MAI) viewpoints, as a DS-CDMA system, this channel gain
difference in each subcarrier causes different
MAI effects; thus, in some cases where several
subcarriers are severely faded, the desired user
signal will suffer from interference by other user
signals with smaller attenuations.
In the TDD method, since the channel is
known, the MT can transmit only on those carriers that are in good condition. To accommodate
the same transmission rate, the spreading factor
can be reduced. The system block diagram and
some user capacity results are shown in Fig. 8.
As expected, performance improvement can be
observed as the best carrier is selected. This
method can easily be implemented in TDD systems, but implementation in FDD systems requires
significant overhead for feedback information.

ENHANCED THROUGHPUT IN THE

DOWNLINK IN HARQ SYSTEM
The second example concerns an OFDM downlink, where due to the TDD mode of transmission, a BS is capable of selecting only those
subcarriers that are not affected by multipath
fading. The proposed system block diagram is
shown in Fig . 9a. The retransmission for the
ARQ system is carried over only over carriers of
higher quality. The decision on which carrier is
good is derived from the channel estimations
based on the NACK/ACK message from the
MT. The throughput performance improvement
is shown in Fig. 9b. Again this method can more
simply be implemented in the TDD mode [15].

101

SUMMARY
102

10

20
Users
(b)

Figure 8. System concept and user capacity.

14

30

Is this article we discuss an evolutionary path for

3.5G and 4G systems based on the TDD mode
of CDMA communications. We have shown why
we believe the TDD mode is the most suitable
for provision of IP-based services: more flexible
capacity allocation, better frequency utilization

IEEE Wireless Communications August 2003

efficiency, better resource allocation for packet

services, and inherent channel reciprocity, resulting in adaptive communications. We believe that
while 1G and 2G systems were dominated by the
FDD mode, 3G and 4G systems will be mostly
based on the TDD mode of communications.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

NACK
FBI
Transmit on all carriers

Retransmit on
good condition's carriers
(a)

The authors would like to thank members of the

Nakagawa Laboratory and IPWireless R&D
Department for valuable contributions to this
article.

Conventional
Proposed system

REFERENCES

ADDITIONAL READING
[1] A. J. Viterbi, CDMA: Principles of Spread Spectrum
Communication, Addison-Wesley.
[2] R. Esmailzadeh, Time Division Duplex transmission of
Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum Systems, Ph.D. dissertation, Keio Univ., Yokohama, Japan, Nov. 1993.
[3] QoS Concept and Architecture, 3GPP TS23.102.
[4] UE Radio Access Capabilities, 3GPP TS25.306 V5.2.0.
[5] Y. Tamura, S. P. W. Jarot, and M. Nakagawa, Subcarrier Selection with Variable Spreading Factor for Reverse
Link of TDD Multi-Carrier/DS-CDMA System, Proc.
MWCN 2002, pp. 35054.

BIOGRAPHIES
RIAZ ESMAILZADEH (riaz@ieee.org) received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Keio University, Japan, in 1994, and
M.B.A. from IMD, Switzerland, in 2002. He has over 15
years of work experience in various capacities related to
telecommunications research, development, and management. He started as a research engineer in Telstra, an operator in Australia, continued at the central research
laboratories of Hitachi in Tokyo, and after working at Ericsson in Sweden, founded the research unit at Nippon Ericsson. He then co-founded and was CTO at Genista

IEEE Wireless Communications August 2003

0.4

Throughput efficiency

[1] W. Mohr, The UTRA Concept, Europes Proposal to

IMT-2000, Proc. GLOBECOM 1999, pp. 268388.
[2] T. Takahashi and M. Nakagawa, Antenna and MultiCarrier Pre-Diversity System Using Time Division Duplex
in Selective Fading Channel, IEICE tech. rep. RCS 9545.
[3] Y. Matsui, S. Sampei, and N. Morinaga, Study on the
Effect of Offset Frequency for Asymmetric Radio Communication Systems Using OFDMA/TDD Technique,
Proc. IEICE Natl. Conf. 2000, B-5-14, p. 399.
[4] Z. Pu, X. You, and S. Cheng, Transmission and Reception
of TDD Multi-Carrier CDMA Signals in Mobile Communications System, Proc. IEEE VTC 1999, pp. 213438.
[5] I. Jeong and M. Nakagawa, A Time Division Duplex
CDMA System Using Asymmetric Modulation Scheme in
Duplex Channel, IEICE Trans. Commun., vol. E82-B, no.
12, Dec. 1999, pp. 195663.
[6] R. Esmailzadeh and M. Nakagawa, Frequency Shaping
of DS-SS Signals for Frequency Common Use Systems,
IEICE tech. rep. SST91-13, Nagaoka, Japan, Aug. 1991.
[7] R. Esmailzadeh and M. Nakagawa, TDD-CDMA for Wireless Communications, Boston: Artech House, 2002.
[8] R. Esmailzadeh and M. Nakagawa, Time-Division
Duplex CDMA for Mobile Communications, IEEE Pers.
Commun., Apr. 1997, pp. 5156.
[9] D. G. Jeong and W. S. Jeon, Time Slot Allocation in
CDMA/TDD Systems for Mobile Multimedia Services,
IEEE Commun. Lett., vol. 4 no. 2, Feb. 2000, pp. 5961.
[10] Physical Layer Procedures (TDD), 3GPP tech. spec. TS
25.224.
[11] G. G. Rayleigh and J. M. Cioffi, Spatio-Temporal Coding for Wireless Communications, IEEE Trans. Commun., vol. 46, no. 3, Mar. 1998, pp. 35766.
[12] A. Klein, G. K. Kaleh, and P. W. Baier, Zero-Forcing
and Minimum Mean-Square-Error Equalisation for Multiuser Detection in Code-Division Multiple-Access Channels, IEEE Trans. Vehic. Tech., vol. 45, no. 2, May
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[13] High Speed Downlink Packet Access: Physical Layer
Aspects, 3GPP TR 25.858.
[14] Analysis of Higher Chip Rates for UTRA TDD Evolution, 3GPP TR 25.895.
[15] K. Okada et al., Carrier Selection Hybrid ARQ for Multicarrier Systems, IEICE tech. rep., Jan. 2003.

3 times transmission
limited

0.2

2 times transmission
limited
0
10

SNR/transmission
(b)

Figure 9. System concept and throughput performance.

Corporation, a telecom software company headquartered
in Tokyo. Since September 2002, he is an associate professor at the Information and Computer Science Department
of Keio University, Yokohama, Japan.
MASAO NAKAGAWA (nakagawa@nkgw.ics.keio.ac.jp) received
B.E., M.E., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from
Keio University, Yokohama, Japan, in 1969, 1971, and
1974, respectively. Since 1973 he has been with the
Department of Electrical Engineering, Keio University,
where he is now a professor. His research interests are in
CDMA, consumer communications, mobile communications, intelligent transport systems, wireless home networks, and visible optical communication. He received the
1989 IEEE Consumer Electronics Society Paper Award,
1999-Fall Best Paper Award in IEEE VTC, IEICE Achievement
Award in 2000, and IEICE Fellow Award in 2001. He was
executive committee chairman of the International Symposium on Spread Spectrum Techniques and Applications in
1992 and technical program committee chairman of the
International Symposium on Information Theory and its
Applications in 1994. He is an editor of Wireless Personal
Communications and was a guest editor of the special
issues on CDMA Networks I, II, III and IV published in IEEE
JSAC in 1994 (I and II) and 1996 (III and IV).
ALAN E. JONES (ajones@ipwireless.com) received B.Eng. and
Ph.D degrees in electronic engineering from the University
of Bradford, England, in 1989 and 1993, respectively. In
1993 he joined Motorola Cellular Infrastructure Division as
a staff engineer working on GSM systems. As a member of
the engineering department he was involved with the
design and development of GSM base stations. In 1996 he
joined Hewlett-Packard Laboratories Bristol as a technical
contributor working on wireless communications. He
joined IPWireless, Inc. in 1999 as technical director.

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