A microcellular DS-CDMA radio link design methodology and an evaluation method are proposed in this paper. The normalized link capacity (link capacity/process gain) and maximum average transmitting power of a mobile station are analyzed for the reverse link in a wideband propagation environment. The bit error rate (BER) is derived for an exponential delay profile with the parameter of normalized transmission bandwidth (transmission bandwidth B × delay spread τs). The average interference noise power of the other users from their own cells and that from other cells are derived based on power control error and the standard deviation of short-term fading. From these results, we derive the normalized link capacity and the maximum average mobile station transmitting power. The transmitting power is reduced by more than 40% for Bτs≤ 2 by combining space and path diversity. The link capacity is proportional to the number of antenna branches. © 1999 Scripta Technica, Electron Comm Jpn Pt 1, 82(9): 51–60, 1999