Software implementation and performance evaluation of WCDMA physical layer

In this paper, we implemented the WCDMA physical layer in terms of full software in a commercial computer that has a 1.4 GHz-clocked Pentium/sup TM/ CPU. The communication operation is done with downlink modulation and demodulation including the transport channel. The established system requires about 12 seconds for processing the data of 40 ms in the first prototype version. After continuous optimization the fourth system requires 250 ms for the same data. Consequently, when the clock speed of the CPU becomes faster than 8 GHz, alternatively, when partial hardware modules dedicated to several critical blocks in terms of processing time are employed, the real time software WCDMA physical layer system can be operated in a general-purpose computer.