Single-carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) is a frequency-division multiple access scheme. Originally known as Carrier Interferometry, it is also called linearly precoded OFDMA (LP-OFDMA). Like other multiple access schemes (TDMA, FDMA, CDMA, OFDMA), it deals with the assignment of multiple users to a shared communication resource. SC-FDMA can be interpreted as a linearly precoded OFDMA scheme, in the sense that it has an additional DFT processing step preceding the conventional OFDMA processing.
SC-FDMA has drawn great attention as an attractive alternative to OFDMA, especially in the uplink communications where lower peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) greatly benefits the mobile terminal in terms of transmit power efficiency and reduced cost of the power amplifier. This is where SC-FDMA gets its name from: it's an OFDM signal that mimics the characteristics of a single-carrier QAM signal.[1] It has been adopted as the uplink multiple access scheme in 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE), or Evolved UTRA (E-UTRA).[2][3][4]
The performance of SC-FDMA in relation to OFDMA has been the subject of various studies.[5][6][7] Although the performance gap is small, SC-FDMA's advantage of low PAPR makes it desirable for uplink wireless transmission in mobile communication systems, where transmitter power efficiency is of paramount importance.
^Priyanto, Basuki E.; Codina, Humbert; Rene, Sergi; Sorensen, Troels B.; Mogensen, Preben (2007). "Initial Performance Evaluation of DFT-Spread OFDM Based SC-FDMA for UTRA LTE Uplink". 2007 IEEE 65th Vehicular Technology Conference - VTC2007-Spring. pp. 3175–3179. doi:10.1109/VETECS.2007.650. ISBN978-1-4244-0266-3. S2CID206836778.
^Benvenuto, N.; Tomasin, S. (2002). "On the comparison between OFDM and single carrier modulation with a DFE using a frequency-domain feedforward filter". IEEE Transactions on Communications. 50 (6): 947–955. doi:10.1109/TCOMM.2002.1010614.