Demodulating device and method for W-CDMA base station

• US 20030117989A1
• Filed: 05/20/2002
• Published: 06/26/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 12/24/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Uniloc 2017 LLC (FIG LLC (d/b/a Fortress Investment Group LLC))
• Original Assignee: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
• Inventors: Kim, Kwang Soon
• Granted Patent: US 7,177,345 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/342
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/7115 Constructive combining of multi-path signals, i.e. RAKE receivers
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/7117 Selection, re-selection, allocation or re-allocation of paths to fingers, e.g. timing offset control of allocated fingers
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 2201/70701 featuring pilot assisted reception
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 2201/70702 Intercell-related aspects

Abstract

A demodulator of a W-CDMA base station comprises: a chip calculator for de-spreading signals received through sectors including antennas; a symbol calculator for using symbols of a control channel and a data channel from the de-spread signals, estimating a channel, and combining signals input through a multi-path; a frame calculator for combining the combined signals to perform transport format combination indicator decoding, feedback information decoding, frame sync estimation, SNR estimation, post-combining, and second de-interleaving; a storage unit for storing outputs of the chip calculator, symbol calculator, and frame calculator; a storage unit controller for controlling inputs/outputs between the chip calculator, symbol calculator, frame calculator, and storage unit; and a host interface for controlling inputs/outputs between the chip calculator, symbol calculator, frame calculator, and host.

Claims

1. A demodulator of a wideband code division access (W-CDMA) system base station comprising:

a chip calculator for receiving signals through a plurality of sectors each of which includes a plurality of antennas, and de-spreading the received signals;

a symbol calculator for selectively using symbols of a control channel and a data channel from the signals de-spread by the chip calculator, estimating a channel, and combining the signals input through a multi-path;

a frame calculator for combining the signals combined by the symbol calculator for each frame to perform transport format combination indicator (TFCI) decoding, feedback information (FBI) decoding, frame sync estimation, signal to noise ratio (SNR) estimation, and post-combining and second de-interleaving calculation;

a storage unit for storing output values of the chip calculator, the symbol calculator, and the frame calculator;

a storage unit controller for controlling input/output signals between the chip calculator, the symbol calculator, the frame calculator, and the storage unit; and

a host interface for controlling input/output signals between the chip calculator, the symbol calculator, the frame calculator, and a host.

2. The demodulator of claim 1, wherein the chip calculator comprises:

a finger pool including a plurality of finger units for de-spreading the signals received from each sector with a minimum spreading factor; and

a channel scheduler for arranging the signals output from each finger unit of the finger pool in a queue through scheduling, and adding a tag for representing a number of each finger unit.

3. The demodulator of claim 2, wherein each finger unit of the finger pool de-spreads sixteen uplink channels through time division.

4. The demodulator of claim 2, wherein the chip calculator further comprises a time tracker for referring to output signals of the channel scheduler to adjust despreading start positions of each finger unit of the finger pool.

5. The demodulator of claim 2, wherein the symbol calculator comprises:

a first channel estimator for using a pilot symbol from among de-spread symbols output from the chip calculator to estimate a channel through time division;

a first RAKE combiner for using a first channel estimation value output from the first channel estimator, and combining the signals output from the finger unit that is dynamically allocated to each user to generate first combined information, and using the first combined information to remove a data part of a control channel'"'"'s symbol that is not the pilot symbol to generate a first extended pilot symbol;

a second channel estimator for using the first extended pilot symbol to estimate the channel again to yield a second channel estimation value;

a second RAKE combiner for using a second channel estimation value output from the second channel estimator and recombining the signals output from the finger unit that is dynamically allocated to each user to generate second combined information, and using the second combined information to remove data parts of the control channel'"'"'s symbol that is not the pilot symbol and of the data channel'"'"'s symbol and generate a second extended pilot symbol;

a third channel estimator for using the second extended pilot symbol to estimate the channel again to yield a third channel estimation value; and

a third RAKE combiner for using the third channel estimation value output from the third channel estimator to combine the signals output from the finger unit that is dynamically allocated to each user and generate third combined information.

6. The demodulator of claim 5, wherein the symbol calculator further comprises a spreading factor estimator for using symbols of a data channel among de-spread signals output from the chip calculator to estimate a spreading factor of the data channel, and the second RAKE combiner uses a spreading factor output from the spreading factor estimator to remove a data portion from the data channel.

7. The demodulator of claim 5, wherein the first to third RAKE combiners refer to a tag for representing a number of the finger unit included in the signal output from the dynamically allocated finger unit and a finger-channel mapping table, and combine the output signals of the finger units by as many as configured in the respective RAKE combiners to generate first to third combined information.

8. The demodulator of claim 7, wherein the number of fingers and the finger-channel mapping table may be dynamically allocated.

9. The demodulator of claim 5, wherein the symbol calculator uses time division to estimate a channel, and is integrated into a single device.

10. The demodulator of claim 1, wherein the frame calculator comprises:

a combined information storage unit for classifying control channel information output from the symbol calculator into a pilot symbol, a TFCI symbol, an FBI'"'"'s S field symbol, an FBI'"'"'s D field symbol, and a transmission power control (TPC) symbol according to at least one condition of time delay and reliability conditions, and storing them;

a TFCI decoder for using a TFCI symbol of the combined information storage unit to perform TFCI decoding during a frame and detect a spreading factor of a data channel of a frame;

an FBI decoder for using the FBI'"'"'s S field symbol and the FBI'"'"'s D field symbol of the combined information storage unit to perform FBI decoding;

a frame sync estimator for using a pilot symbol of the combined information storage unit to check whether the frame is synchronized;

an SNR estimator for using a pilot symbol of the combined information storage unit to estimate an SNR of an uplink channel; and

a post-combiner and second de-interleaver for using a data channel spreading factor obtained by decoding the TFCI symbol by the TFCI decoder to perform a post-combining on the data channel symbol, and using a data channel spreading factor and compressed mode information to perform a second de-interleaving.

11. The demodulator of claim 10, wherein the frame calculator processes information of all channels through time division, and is configured into a single device.

12. The demodulator of claim 10, wherein the combined information storage unit uses first combined information of the symbol calculator to classify a pilot symbol and an FBI'"'"'s D symbol, uses second combined information to classify an FBI'"'"'s S symbol, and uses third combined information to classify a data channel symbol and a TFCI symbol.

13. The demodulator of claim 1, wherein a storage area of the storage unit may be dynamically allocated for each channel by as much as is needed according to service categories.

14. A demodulation method of a W-CDMA base station comprising:

(a) receiving signals from a plurality of sectors each of which includes a plurality of antennas, and de-spreading the received signals at a finger unit that is dynamically allocated to each user;

(b) selectively using symbols of a control channel and a data channel from the de-spread signals to estimate a channel, and using a value obtained by channel estimation to combine signals input through a multi-path; and

(c) classifying the combined signals according to at least one condition of time delay and reliability conditions, and performing TFCI decoding, FBI decoding, frame sync estimation, SNR estimation, post-combining, and second de-interleaving.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein (a) comprises:

arranging the de-spread signals in a queue through scheduling, and adding a tag for representing a number of each finger unit; and

referring to the de-spread signals to control positions of the finger unit.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein (b) comprises:

using a pilot symbol of the de-spread signal to estimate a first channel through time division;

using a first channel estimation value and combining signals output from the finger unit that is dynamically allocated to each user to generate first combined information, and using the first combined information and removing a data portion of a control channel'"'"'s symbol that is not the pilot symbol to generate a first extended pilot symbol;

using the first extension pilot symbol to estimate the channel again to yield a second channel estimation value;

using the second channel estimation value and recombining a signal output from a finger unit that is dynamically allocated to each user to generate second combined information, and using the second combined information and removing a control channel'"'"'s symbol that is not the pilot symbol and a data portion of a data channel'"'"'s symbol to generate a second extended pilot symbol;

using the second extended pilot symbol to estimate the channel again to yield a third channel estimation value; and

using the third channel estimation value and recombining a signal output from the finger unit that is dynamically allocated to each user to generate third combined information.