Understanding HSDPA’s
implementation challenges
By David Maidment
Product Manager
picoChip Designs Ltd
E-mail: david.maidment
@picochip.com
Since its introduction, 3G tech-
nology has been heralded for
its ability to deliver more voice
channels and higher-bandwidth
pipes. But operators have
started to realize that while 3G
allows for high-quality voice and
media streaming services, it is
a poor fit for high-speed data.
High-speed downlink pa-
cket access (HSDPA) techno-
logy promises to bridge the gap
between 3G and the Internet,
providing an overlay for the ex-
isting protocol stack that en-
ables the delivery of high-speed
data to many users in a cell. In-
stead of limiting high-speed
data access to fewer than five
users in a cell, HSDPA can de-
liver 384Kbps data to up to 30
users.
Not simple
But HSPDA is not a simple soft-
ware upgrade to 3G systems. In
many respects, the change from
Release 99 to HSDPA is as sig-
nificant as that from voice-only
GSM to EDGE—changing both
modulation and the way packets
are processed.
There are parts of the
HSDPA standard that are rela-
tively simple to implement us-
ing existing hardware. But,
taken as a whole, HSDPA will
simply break many deployed
architectures and will require
new hardware. Most base sta-
tions (also known as Node Bs)
will need significant upgrades
to cope with the increased data
throughput and consequences
of moving to a more complex
protocol.
HSDPA increases the down-
link data rate within a cell
to a theoretical maximum of
14Mbps, with 2Mbps on the
uplink. However, it is not about
delivering Ethernet bandwidth
to one fortunate user. What is
important is the ability to reli-
ably deliver many sessions of
high-speed, bursty data to a
large number of users within
that cell. The changes that
HSDPA enables include better
quality and more reliable, more
robust data services. In other
words, while realistic data
rates may only be a few Mbps,
the actual quality and number
of users achieved will improve
significantly.
Burst problems
IP is a bursty protocol that de-
mands changes to the wideband-
CDMA (W-CDMA) protocol
stack to support IP efficiently.
Bursty protocols are a poor
fit with dedicated channels
(DCHs) that are used in existing
W-CDMA networks. Although
the DCH can support many dif-
ferent types of traffic, use of the
channel for bursty traffic is quite
low. This is because the process
of channel reconfiguration that
can be used to tune the DCH for
a change in traffic mix traffic is
slow, taking on the order of
500ms.
These issues have been ad-
dressed in Release 5 of the 3G
Partnership Project (3GPP)
standards, which radically
changes the network to make it
better suited to data traffic.
Support for IPv6 has been in-
corporated into the core net-
work with a key enhancement
to provide high-bandwidth
HS-PDSCH
Downlink
HS-PDSCH
HS-PDSCH
HS-PDSCH
HS-SCCH
Uplink HS-DPCCH
HS-DPCCH
HS-DPCCH
HS-DPCCH
Figure 1: Instead of sending data using individual DCHs, HSDPA extends the DSCH, allowing packets destined for
many users to be shared on one higher-bandwidth channel called the HS-DSCH.
support for bursty IP traffic for at the edge of the cell. For a
the mobile user. large cell with a diverse range of
Instead of sending data us- users, the peak aggregate data
ing individual DCHs, HSDPA rate will be in the range of 1-
extends the downlink shared 1.5Mbps. This can increase to
channel (DSCH), allowing more than 6Mbps as the cell
packets destined for many users size decreases to the microcell
to be shared on one higher- level and beyond. In principle,
bandwidth channel called the a picocell could see data rates of
high-speed DSCH (HS-DSCH). 8Mbps or more.
As with wired networks such as To achieve higher raw data
Ethernet, this allows for the rates, HSDPA uses higher-level
more efficient use of available modulation schemes such as
bandwidth. On top of that, a 16QAM at the PHY layer, to-
faster channel configuration gether with an adaptive coding
process allows the base station scheme based on turbo codes.
to control the channel more ef- Note that the modulation
fectively (Figure 1). scheme is adaptive and changed
on a per-user basis. The spread-
Too many options ing factor used for the HS-
There are many options avail- DSCH remains fixed at 16, but
able to base-station designers the coding rate can vary on a
and operators when dealing per-user basis between 1/4 and
with HSDPA. This complicates 3/4. In theory, the protocol al-
the provision of HSDPA as the lows an uncoded link of 4/4,
network is upgraded, but intel- but that is only useful for lab
ligent choices over base-station tests to achieve the theoretical
implementation can result in maximum of 14Mbps using
higher throughput for high- 16-QAM modulation.
revenue services, improving However, many of the re-
operators’ margins. sults announced so far fall short
The maximum bandwidth of what is expected from a ma-
that can be achieved with ture, robust system. In small
HSDPA depends largely on cell cells (the 3G equivalent of hot
size. To limit the power needed spots), ver y high data rates
to send each bit of information, should be realistically attained.
the maximum achievable bit Under poor reception condi-
rate tends to fall away for users tions, the modulation can vary
High-speed physical downlink shared channel
"The data bearer"
Up to 15, always associated with a DCH
Data bearer: Peak data rate 14.4Mbps
SF = 16
High-speed shared control channel
"The signaling channel"
Carries HARQ information and format parameters
Up to 4 logical channels per UE
SF = 128
High-speed dedicated physical control channel
"Packet flow control signaling"
Carries HARQ, channel quality information
SF = 256
as well, possibly reverting to
QPSK from the higher-order
modulation of 16-QAM. Link
adaptation ensures the highest
possible data rate is achieved
both for users with good signal
quality who are typically close
to the base station and for more
distant users at the cell edge
who may receive data with a
lower coding rate. The link ad-
aptation is performed on each
transmission timing interval
(TTI), with the user equipment
sending an estimate of the
channel quality to Node B that
is then used to select the modu-
lation and coding rate for that
user on the next transmission.
Moving MAC control
The more important change
that HSDPA makes is to move
control of the medium access
control (MAC) layer from the
radio network controller (RNC)
into the base station. Crucially,
this move enables the use of fast-
scheduling algorithms where,
under constructive fading con-
ditions, users are served data
based on channel-quality esti-
mates. This compares to risking
high error rates to be experi-
enced by users in poor reception
conditions using a conventional
user-priority or round-robin
scheme, where the scheduler
uses average channel conditions
to select the modulation and
coding scheme used. As a result,
fast scheduling works hand-in-
hand with the algorithms used
to select optimum modulation
and coding schemes.
This increases the respon-
siveness of the base station. The
16-QAM coding change in-
creases the peak speed in the
same way that a high-powered
engine can boost the perfor-
mance of a car, but it is the
MAC change that makes
HSDPA deliver a real-world
speed increase, much like re-
placing a learner driver with a
Formula One racing driver.
Performance will be notice-
ably better even if 16-QAM
modulation cannot be used.
This demonstrates how a shift
in the 3G architecture from a
traditional “dumb pipe with in-
telligent center” to a more
datacom-like “smart edge” can
yield better results.
Overall, the data rate has in-
creased sevenfold, the response
time was reduced by 80 percent
and the algorithms, scheduling
and complexity have increased
significantly. These changes
will be difficult to achieve in a
hardware design that was not
architected to support them.
Indeed, some early demon-
strations only implemented a
few of these features or only
achieved limited data rates.
While 16-QAM modulation is
the most obvious change and
easy to demonstrate at a trade
fair, the capabilities of the
MAC-hs and adaptive control
loops are more important, but
less visible. Developing, testing
and “hardening” these algo-
rithms for field deployment are
the major challenges for manu-
facturers.
Increasing complexity
The improved performance and
processor power provided by
HSDPA implies an increase in
complexity. Many high-speed
feedback loops are needed to
implement HSDPA efficiently
and provide users with the best
data rates possible.
Transport
layer
termination
lub termination
PowerPC
Transport network layer
- NBAP transport (ATM, AAL5)
- Transport signaling (ALCAP)
- Data stream transport (ATM, AAL2)
- Specific O, A and M
Figure 2: Protocols such as HSDPA work well on parallel-processing architectures.
For example, the TTI used
for modulation and coding se-
lection for individual frames in
HS-DSCH is just 2ms, com-
pared with a typical time of
10ms (and up to 80ms) for the
TTI used for power control in
the existing Release 99 shared
channel. Furthermore, the al-
gorithms needed to make good
use of all the possibilities pro-
vided by fast scheduling will
be more complex than those
implemented by existing RNC
software, but those decisions
have to be made within a
millisecond.
When link errors occur, data
packets can be retransmitted cremental redundancy can be
quickly at the request of the used. In this scheme, parity
mobile terminal. In existing W- bits are sent to allow the mo-
CDMA networks, these re- bile terminal to combine the
quests are processed by the information from the first
RNC. As with fast scheduling, transmission with subsequent
better responsiveness is pro- retransmissions.
vided by HSDPA by processing The scheduler and retrans-
the request in the base station. mission manager require large
The hybrid automatic repeat buffers to hold all the packets
request (HARQ) protocol de- that might need to be re-sent.
veloped for HSDPA allows effi- This function was not present
cient retransmission of drop- in earlier functions, so the sup-
ped or corrupted packets. The porting hardware needs to have
protocol was designed to allow been designed in readiness for
the average delivered band- it for existing implementations
width of HSDPA to be higher to support HSDPA at suffi-
than would be possible if more ciently high data rates.
extensive forward error correc-
tion were to be used. However, Factors impacting scheduling
it puts significant demands on It is simple to devise a schedu-
the base station, since support ling algorithm that will work
for HARQ calls for low latency. well for a few users in the labo-
The latency demanded for effi- ratory with artificially gene-
cient HARQ support calls for rated constructive fading condi-
retransmissions to be pro- tions, but it is much harder to
cessed within 2-7ms. But the develop one that works robustly
feedback loop that allows in the field for many users—all
HARQ to be implemented is not with different, complicated and
R4 Tx symbol rate R4 Tx chip rate Tx
sample
HS Tx rate
lub/FP encode
HS Tx chip rate
To/from
MAC-hs ADC/DAC
Channel element controller
and RF
HS-DPCCH decode Rx
R4/HS-DPCCH
Rx chip rate
sample
R4 Rx symbol rate rate
Device 1 (PC 102) Device 0 (PC 102)
SDRAM SRAM
Radio network layer
- NBAP (TS5.433);
- L1 resource management and
measurement
- Framing protocol termination for
dedicated and common channels
one that exists in Release 99 changing situations. Many cir-
base stations, as that function cumstances will affect real-
sits in the RNC for existing world systems, not the least of
DCH and DSCH transmissions. which are evolving capabilities
Hence, not only must things of the terminals themselves,
work faster, but many functions whether they are handsets or
are new, adding to the capabili- data cards inserted into PCs.
ties and intelligence of Node B. Latency demands of HSDPA
In addition to fast retrans- mean that designs will react dif-
missions, a number of tech- ferently to changing fading con-
niques are used to provide the ditions and packet deliver y
mobile terminal with a better speeds.
chance of receiving the data Similar problems were seen
correctly. For users with a high in the early days of the Internet,
coding rate, simple chase com- when interactions between the
bining may be used, which sim- different layers of the protocol
ply repeats the packet. For us- stack led to less-efficient band-
ers with a low coding rate, in- width use than expected. Tech-
niques were developed to over-
come the problems and in-
serted into terminal equipment
and infrastructural systems to
bring performance back up to
their expected levels.
If a scheduler is not designed
to react to problems, operators
may see some users with ter-
minals that are able to handle
high-speed transfers starved of
bandwidth, while other users
with less-capable systems use
up too much of the HS-DSCH
bandwidth. Such a situation
will see much lower data use
than expected. A more intelli-
gent scheduler that watches for
changes to channel and termi-
nal conditions—and schedules
packets for terminals that can
receive at higher data rates—
will improve overall revenue.
However, the need to sup-
port different quality-of-service
(QoS) contracts with each ter-
minal will further complicate
the situation for the scheduler,
as it cannot simply deny band-
width to a terminal with a high
QoS setting just because it hap-
pens to be in a poor reception
area or is unable to react
quickly enough to the data it
receives from the base station.
As well as allowing for evo-
lution in scheduler design, in
many cases, it will be desirable
to have different scheduling
policies in action at different
times of the day or tuned for cer-
tain locations, such as an air-
port waiting lounge. Testing
this requires multiple scenarios
to be evaluated under different
loading conditions. As a result,
architectures that maximize
f lexibility will be key to effi-
cient HSDPA implementation.
Granularity needed
Processing granularity will be
an major consideration for the
efficient implementation of an
HSDPA-compliant base station.
Systems based on a small num-
ber of high-performance DSPs
tend to demand large buffers
and work on large groups of data
at any one time to reduce the
overhead of switching between
tasks. This makes things
“clumpy” with high latency.
However, such a coarse-grained
approach to task scheduling is a
poor fit for algorithms such as
scheduling that need low la-
tency to work effectively.
Advanced silicon processes
available today make it possible
to implement hundreds of pro-
cessors on a single chip with
distributed memory blocks and
an interconnect structure that
efficiently delivers data needed
to implement the required feed-
back paths. Protocols such as
HSDPA, as with earlier versions
of W-CDMA, work well on par-
allel-processing architectures,
as many different processes
need to happen at the same
time (Figure 2).
Fine-grained control will be
necessary to implement features
such as fast scheduling and per-
user coding and modulation ad-
aptation. With a large number
of processing elements, it be-
comes possible to dedicate pro-
cessing and buffer resources al-
most on a per-user or per-func-
tion basis. For example, one
processor may collate informa-
tion for a processor that just
runs an advanced scheduling al-
gorithm. This allows the proces-
sor to perform scheduling deci-
sions all the time. This will yield
much lower latencies than a sys-
tem where scheduling is shared
with other tasks on a general-
purpose processor or DSP.
Future-proofing
A flexible, software-based de-
sign will be vital for future im-
provements to the W-CDMA ser-
vice offering. HSDPA is an un-
balanced system with a maxi-
mum of 14Mbps on the downlink
and 2Mbps on the uplink from
the terminal to the network.
That can be a concern, as TCP
can easily be “uplink-choked” if
acknowledgments are slow, re-
ducing the downlink rate.
Release 6 of the 3GPP speci-
fication will change that by in-
troducing high-speed uplink
packet access (HSUPA). This al-
lows users to take advantage of
faster uplinks with lower latency
when sending large files or e-
mails. That in turn improves the
efficiency of the link, increasing
effective throughput even if the
modulation has not changed.
Indeed, without the improved
efficiency of HSUPA, it is highly
likely that HSDPA will be im-
paired in applications that
have more balanced bandwidth
needs.
HSUPA puts even more
strenuous demands on the base-
station design and processing
electronics will have to deal with
a much more complex decode
environment in the same way
that HSDPA demands much
more of the terminals in deco-
ding. HSUPA means moving
control functions from the RNC
to the Node B. As is the case for
HSDPA, these will likely break
many installed architectures.
Given the speed that these
changes are arriving, having a
f lexible or upgradeable plat-
form is important.
HSDPA significantly im-
proves the quality and perfor-
mance of wireless data for 3G,
with a corresponding impact on
the operator’s profit. Changes
to the modulation, architecture
and networking control algo-
rithm are all required. How-
ever, despite some claims, this
upgrade is not simple and many
base stations will require new
extensive hardware if they are
to deliver on the potential. Im-
mediately following HSDPA is
its counterpart for the up-
stream. This also has great ad-
vantages, but likely requires
further hardware changes. Car-
riers should plan for the major
opportunity, but also minimize
the disruption.