Inter-cell Interference Analysis on Multi-Carrier CDMA System

In this paper the downlink inter-cell interference (ICI) of the multi-carrier CDMA systems is analyzed. Based on the concept that is always employed in the WCDMA multi-cell link-level simulation, radio geometry concept, we build a multi-cell MC-CDMA link-level simulation model with acceptable computing complexity and reliability. The question whether ICI can be modeled by additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN), i.e. Gaussian approximation (GA), which is always assumed for most of the simulations, is addressed. In different scenarios, with different number of users in surrounding interfering cells and synchronization offset, the interference is analyzed by simulation on the model. The results turn out that the interference in the MC-CDMA system is not always perfectly white. It depends on some factors in the system. Furthermore, the difference between real ICI and GA is also presented