  This paper presents the first concerted look at low correlation sequence
families over QAM constellations of size M^2=4^m and their potential
applicability as spreading sequences in a CDMA setting.
  Five constructions are presented, and it is shown how such sequence families
have the ability to transport a larger amount of data as well as enable
variable-rate signalling on the reverse link.
  Canonical family CQ has period N, normalized maximum-correlation parameter
theta_max bounded above by A sqrt(N), where 'A' ranges from 1.8 in the 16-QAM
case to 3.0 for large M. In a CDMA setting, each user is enabled to transfer 2m
bits of data per period of the spreading sequence which can be increased to 3m
bits of data by halving the size of the sequence family. The technique used to
construct CQ is easily extended to produce larger sequence families and an
example is provided.
  Selected family SQ has a lower value of theta_max but permits only (m+1)-bit
data modulation. The interleaved 16-QAM sequence family IQ has theta_max <=
sqrt(2) sqrt(N) and supports 3-bit data modulation.
  The remaining two families are over a quadrature-PAM (Q-PAM) subset of size
2M of the M^2-QAM constellation. Family P has a lower value of theta_max in
comparison with Family SQ, while still permitting (m+1)-bit data modulation.
Interleaved family IP, over the 8-ary Q-PAM constellation, permits 3-bit data
modulation and interestingly, achieves the Welch lower bound on theta_max.
