Abstract. Multi-user detection is a technique proposed for mobile radio systems based on the CDMA principle, such as the upcoming UMTS. While offering an elegant solution to problems such as intra-cell interference, it demands very significant computational resources.In this paper, we present a high-level approach for reducing the required resources for performing multi-user detection in a 3GPP TDD multi-user system. This approach is based on a displacement representation of the parameters that describe the transmission system, and a generalized Schur algorithm that works on this representation. The Schur algorithm naturally leads to a highly parallel hardware implementation using CORDIC cells. It is shown that this hardware architecture can also be used to compute the initial displacement representation.It is very beneficial to introduce incremental refinement structures into the solution process, both at the algorithmic level and in the individual cells of the hardware architecture. We detail these approximations and present simulation results that confirm their effectiveness.