Technologies and Standards for TD-SCDMA Evolutions to IMT-Advanced

The current TD-SCDMA commercialization in China brings about many issues concerning the implementation of TD-SCDMA technology, the market, and its applications. In order to make TD-SCDMA successful, evolution from the current TD-SCDMA standards to International Mobile Telecommunications-Advanced are anticipated. TD-SCDMA standards and technologies will take a home-made evolution path in China, aiming at a smooth migration to the next-generation mobile communication system. This article provides a brief description of the evolution strategies of both the standards and key technologies, in which the evolution is divided into three phases. The state of the art of TD-SCDMA evolution is surveyed, and its technologies and standards in different evolution phases are characterized. Single-and multi-carrier high-speed packet access is specified in the first evolution phase for guaranteeing the high transmission bit rate of packet services. Meanwhile, broadcast services are supported, and the HSPA evolution is also incorporated in this phase. Long Term Evolution is defined in the second evolution phase for approaching similar performance as mobile WiMAX, where channel-reciprocity-based multiple antenna techniques are utilized. The last phase is the revolution to the IMT-Advanced system and becoming one alternative standard in beyond 3G systems, which is based on the evolution of TD-LTE. The difference of standardizations between 3GPP and local standard releases are introduced. Some challenging work and open issues in different evolution phases are discussed as well.