Equal BER Performance in Linear Successive Interference Cancellation

In this contribution, we calculate the received power distribution required to obtain equal BER performance for all links in a CDMA systems employing a linear successive interference cancellation (SIC) receiver at the base station. We show that the variance of the decision statistic of the linear SIC receiver can be formulated in a non-recursive manner which allows calculation of the power profile necessary to obtain equal signal-to-noise-plus-interference ratios for all received signals when cancellation order is determined based on average power. When equal BER performance is required, this formulation allows capacity limits to be determined for a required SINR or an SINR limitation to be calculated for a given capacity.