3G/UMTS

Cell Search Procedure

Cell Search procecess in WCDMA would be described as follows (For the detailed understanding, I would recommend you to study each of the physical channels involved in the following description).

i) Every cell is tranmitting its scrambling code(Primary Scrambling Code) via CPICH.

ii) UE detect the cell power, primary scrambling code and some addition info for compensating demodulation process

iii) UE detect P-SCH (Primary Synchronization Code) and figure out slot boundary (start and end of each slot)

iv) UE detect S-SCH (Primary Synchronization Code) and figure out frame bounday (start and end of each frame)

v) UE detect P-CCPCH and decode MIB. Through this MIB, UE can figure out SFN.