SINR enhancement in an IS-95 downlink receiver

We examine the performance of methods that increase the accuracy of demodulating and reconstructing a strong base station signal such that it can be canceled prior to demodulating weaker base station signals. This successive interference cancellation (SIC) process is used to increase the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) of a weaker base station being demodulated above the threshold needed to achieve a desired bit error rate. However the parameters of the stronger base station must be estimated with enough accuracy for successful signal reconstruction, otherwise, the SINR may not be sufficiently enhanced. We provide an analysis that determines how much interference can be removed from the received signal, in the form of the stronger base station, given a specific SINR. The methods we address to increase the effective SINR include features unique to the downlink of Interim Standard 95 (IS-95), such as bit repetition and properties of the power control bits.