SC-FDMA

Single-carrier FDMA

Single-carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) is a frequency-division multiple access scheme. 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. It has been adopted as the uplink multiple access scheme in 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE), or Evolved UTRA (E-UTRA).