  This paper focuses on edge caching in dense heterogeneous cellular networks
(HetNets), in which small base stations (SBSs) with limited cache size store
the popular contents, and massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) aided
macro base stations provide wireless self-backhaul when SBSs require the
non-cached contents. Our aim is to address the effects of cell load and hit
probability on the successful content delivery (SCD), and present the minimum
required base station density for avoiding the access overload in an arbitrary
small cell and backhaul overload in an arbitrary macrocell. The massive MIMO
backhaul achievable rate without downlink channel estimation is derived to
calculate the backhaul time, and the latency is also evaluated in such
networks. The analytical results confirm that hit probability needs to be
appropriately selected, in order to achieve SCD. The interplay between cache
size and SCD is explicitly quantified. It is theoretically demonstrated that
when non-cached contents are requested, the average delay of the non-cached
content delivery could be comparable to the cached content delivery with the
help of massive MIMO aided self-backhaul, if the average access rate of cached
content delivery is lower than that of self-backhauled content delivery.
Simulation results are presented to validate our analysis.
