Use of Rank Indication in LTE

Probably all of you must have heard of something called rank indication in LTE. The rank
indication or the RI in LTE is one of the control information that a UE will report to eNodeB on
either PUCCH or PUSCH based on uplink scheduling.

The eNodeB configures the RI reporting periodicity for every UE during the attach procedure
and UE has to honour it. The RI reporting periodicity can overlap with CQI reporting periodicity
in which case the UE will drop CQI and report RI.

Now coming to the RI itself, the contents of RI is just a couple of bits. The number depends on
antenna configuration. If the eNodeB is configured with 2 transmit antennas on downlink then
the number of bits reported in RI will be one and if its 4 then number of RI bits will be 2.

Lets consider the two antenna case where RI is indicated using one bit, so a bit 0 indicates
RANK1 and a bit 1 indicates RANK2. RANK1 means the UE is seeing a good SINR only on
one of its receive antenna so asking the eNodeB to bring down the transmission mode to single
antenna or transmit diversity. A RANK2 from the UE means good SINR on both the antenna
ports and eNodeB can schedule MIMO.

Its very essential for the eNodeB to decode a UEs RI report to know the channel conditions so
that it can schedule downlink appropriately. The LTE specifications also say that if the UE is not
reporting any RI then the eNodeB should assume RANK1.

So thats all about rank indication. I hope it was useful

What is MIB in LTE

MIB or Master Information Block is a very important message or information that is broadcasted
by the LTE eNodeB irrespective of any users presence. The MIB is first among the other system
information blocks or SIB, which are also broadcasted by the eNodeB.

The MIB is transmitted using a physical layer channel called PBCH or Physical Broadcast
Channel on downlink. The MIB is a 24 bit information with following information within,

 3 bits for system bandwidth

 3 bits for PHICH information,
 1 bit to indicate normal or extended PHICH
 2 bit to indicate the PHICH Ng value
 8 bits for system frame number
 10 bits are reserved for future use
 Apart from the information in the payload, the MIB CRC also conveys the number of transmit
antennas used by the eNodeB. The MIB CRC is scrambled or XORed with a antenna specific
mask.
Now to talk about significance of each field,
 The system bandwidth, as you all know is a must knowledge a UE must have to decode any
other physical layer channels
 PHICH info, which is nothing but the Ng value (or the number of PHICH groups used in the
first symbol) is very important too, because unless the UE knows that, he will not be able to
decode PDCCH and hence any DCI. This field also tells UE about the PHICH duration, if it is
normal PHICH or extended PHICH, which is also essential for the UE to decode the control
channels completely
 System frame number is transmitted in the MIB for mainly two reasons, one, for initial
sychronization and two for periodic sync that a UE can do to find out any drifts of its timing
vs the eNodeB’s timing.
The MIB has two perspectives,

1. Generation periodicity – The generation periodicity is the duration between two consecutive
MIB information generated by the higher layers. This periodicity is 40 milliseconds and the
physical layer receives a new MIB for encoding every 40 milliseconds. The system frame
number within each MIB will be a rolling number between 0-255 and keeps changing every
MIB but other contents may or may not change.
2. Transmission periodicity – The transmission periodicity is the duration between two
consecutive PBCH transmission by the physical layer. The physical layer transmits the PBCH
for every 10 milliseconds. Although the contents within 4 consecutive PBCH will remain
same as the PBCH carries MIB and the MIB can change only after 40 milliseconds since the
first PBCH transmission.
PBCH Transmission
The MIB payload worth 24 bit is received from higher layer to physical layer and the physical
layer will follow below processes,

1. CRC Generation – where a 16 bit CRC is generated by the CRC module and it is scrambled
with a antenna specific mask
2. CRC attachment to MIB – The generated CRC is attached to the MIB payload after which
the size of the payload will be 40 bits (24 bit of MIB + 16 bit of CRC)
3. Convolution encoding – A tail bit convolution encoding is performed over the 40 bits and the
output is 3 streams of 40 bits each
4. Rate matching – The rate matching here is nothing but a repetition coding, where the 3
streams of size 120 bits (40x3bits) is just repeated 16 times to get 1920 bits. The repetition
rate is very high since the MIB is a very vital information and the UE cannot afford to lose it.
5. Scrambling – These 1920 bits are scrambled with a scrambling sequence as long as 1920 bits
6. Modulation (QPSK) – A QPSK modulation is performed over these 1920 bits to obtain 960
complex QPSK symbols
This is the basic operation for PBCH encoding, but since the PBCH has to be transmitted every
10 milliseconds on subframe 0 of all radio frames, the PBCH modulation buffer is divided into 4
sub-buffers each as long as 240 complex symbols. Each sub-buffer is transmitted in PBCH and
by the time the last sub buffer is transmitted on PBCH, a new MIB is arrived from higher layer
which is again encoded using the above method and the process continues.

MIB Transmission on PBCH

As you see from the above diagram, a new MIB is generated by higher layers whenever the
Radio frame number satisfies the condition (Radioframe Number Modulo 4 is zero) RF%4=0.
The grey boxes in the diagram are the first subframe of each radio frame or subframe-0. Also
you know that PBCH output is 960 complex symbols long and that is divided into 4 parts and
each parts are transmitted in consecutive radioframes, which can also be seen the diagram, where
the first 240 bits goes in RF-0, the next 240 bits in RF-1 and so on. Just to note, each individual
PBCH are independently decodable, what I mean here is, if the UE finds the PBCH in RF-0 he
can still decode the all contents of MIB without waiting for the parts of the PBCH in coming in
next radioframes.
Significance of MIB for UE
MIB is a very crucial information that a UE need to acquire before it can start any transaction
with the eNodeB because it know all the vital information in the MIB as explained above and
also it will come to know the 40 millisecond boundary from the decoded MIB. The System
frame number transmitted within the PBCH will remain same for 4 radio frames, because of the
same fact that 4 consecutive radio frames are transmitted the same MIB information. Now for a
UE to know the 40 millisecond boundary, all it has to find is 4 consecutive system frame
numbers that are same. Now from the same diagram, RF-0 to RF-3 will have same system frame
number within.

So for the best case, if the UE starts decoding the MIB from RF-0 it will see same system frame
number for 4 consecutive radio frames and it will understand that RF-0 is the 40 millisecond
boundary. For the worst case, if UE decodes RF-1 first then he will see same system frame
numbers in RF-1, RF-2, RF-3 and a different one in RF-4 so he continues decoding the PBCH
till RF-5, RF-6 & RF-7 and he sees a same system frame number from RF-4 to RF-7 and hence
decides that RF-4 is the 40 millisecond boundary.

So from system point of view, a UE can decode the MIB & 40 millisecond boundary in 40
milliseconds for the best case and 70 milliseconds for the worst case, considering the latency
start count from the time RF-0 was transmitted.
So this is all about the MIB & PBCH. Please feel free to ask any questions or clarifications or
even corrections.

Paging is a generic term and it’s also used in LTE, so I thought about writing a small but not
detailed article on Paging, it’s uses and how physical layer is involved in Paging process.

Paging is mostly a RRC procedure and it simply means waking up the UE which is Idle, if there
is some data for it. So why do we need to wake up the UE? Again there can be multiple reasons
for it such as downlink data, change of system information or even earth quake or Tsunami
warning or fall back to lower access technologies like CDMA in all these case the UE needs to
be woken up in case it has entered a RRC IDLE state.
Now, how does the UE know when to look for Paging messages? It’s told about the Paging cycle
during the initial attach process as part of system information (SIB2) Now that UE knows about
the Paging cycle, it will momentarily wake up during the Onset of Paging cycle, check if there is
any Paging for itself and then sleep again if there isn’t any. If there is any Paging for it then it
will react to it by triggering a RRC connection request message.

How is Paging transmitted on LTE physical layer? Of course it goes on PCH, physical Paging
channel. So what’s the difference between PCH and PDSCH? Well, not much, the encoding
process is very similar except for few restrictions that apply for only PCH. Restrictions such as
RNTI used is always 65534 (0xFFFE), modulation scheme used is always QPSK, transmission
scheme is always SISO or transmit diversity but never MIMO. He transport block that comes to
physical layer for PCH is not usually a very huge one, but there can be multiple UEs Paging
message multiplexed in the same transport block though. The transport block size for the PCH is
restricted to the maximum possible transport block size that is possible for QPSK for maximum
possible resource blocks in the given system bandwidth.
Since the Paging is a cell level procedure, the cycle remains same for all the UEs, but there is
window to it, which means, the UE has to look for Paging message around the Paging cycles
until the maximum window size is checked.

This is some basic information about Paging. If you have any doubts or correction do not hesitate

to write it in the comments section

Different DCI Formats in LTE

This article is dedicated to DCI formats that are used in LTE downlink. DCI stands for downlink
control information and there are various DCI formats used in LTE in PDCCH. The DCI format
is nothing but a predefined format in which the downlink control information is packed/formed
and transmitted in PDCCH. Below are moe details on DCI formats,
Why are these DCI formats required? Simple, it tells the UE how to get its data which is
transmitted on PDSCH in the same subframe. So DCI format transmitted in PDCCH, is like a
map for a UE to find and decode PDSCH from the resource grid. The DCI format gives the UE,
details such as number of resource blocks, resource allocation type, modulation scheme,
transport block, redundancy version, coding rate etc. Each DCI format, when encoding is
attached with a CRC that is scrambled with the a UE-RNTI to which the PDSCH is intended to.
So only that UE can decode the DCI format and hence the corresponding PDSCH. The packed
DCI information is the payload to the PDCCH encoding chain.

The DCI formats are further classified into downlink DCI formats and uplink DCI formats. The
different DCI formats are as below,

 Downlink DCI Formats

 Format 1 – Used for scheduling a PDSCH codeword. Only a single transport block can be
scheduled here using resource allocation type-0/type-1
 Format 1A – Used for scheduling a PDSCH codeword. Only a single transport block can
be scheduled here using resource allocation type2 (localized or distribtued)
 Format 1B – Used for scheduling a PDSCH codeword with Rank-1 assignment
 Format 1C – Very compact scheduling of a PDSCH codeword. A single transport block
can be scheduled using resource allocation type2 distributed always
 Format 1D – Used for scheduling Multi-user MIMO cases
 Format 2 – Used for scheduling of PDSCH in closed loop spatial multiplexing
 Format 2A – Used for scheduling of PDSCH in open loop spatial multiplexing
 Uplink DCI Formats
 Format 0 – Used for scheduling of PUSCH (uplink grant)
 Format 3 – Uplink transmit power control with 2 bit power adjustment
 Format 3A – Uplink transmit power control with 1 bit power adjustment
The DCI formats are coupled with different transmission modes and resource allocation types in
downlink.

Aggregation Levels and PDCCH

Just thought of writing a small note on how aggregation level controls PDCCH decoding and its
importance in a wireless channel. There are 4 different aggregation levels defined in LTE and
they are 1, 2, 4 and 8 using which each DCI format is mapped on to the DL control symbols,
Basically all downlink control channels are defined in terms of following terms,

 REG – Resource element group, which is smallest defined unit and includes 4
subcarriers/resource elements
 CCE – Control channel element, which is nothing but group of 9 REGs, that means there are
a total of 9×4=36 subcarriers and since all the control channels are mapped using
QPSK/BPSK which basically can map 2 bits per subcarrier, we can accommodate 72 control
channel bits per CCE
Aggregation Levels

So now directly jumping to aggregation levels, as I told earlier there are 4 different aggregation
levels supported in LTE downlink, they are 1, 2, 4 and 8. Each of these numbers basically
specify the number of CCE they require to map a PDCCH DCI, as shown below

 Aggregation level = 1
 Number of CCE = 1
Number of subcarriers available to map = 36
Number of bits possible to map = 72
 Aggregation level = 2
 Number of CCE = 2
 Number of subcarriers available to map = 72
 Number of bits possible to map = 144
 Aggregation level = 4
 Number of CCE = 4
 Number of subcarriers available to map = 144
 Number of bits possible to map = 288
 Aggregation level = 8
 Number of CCE = 8
 Number of subcarriers available to map = 288
 Number of bits possible to map = 576
How is aggregation level Chosen?

As we saw from the previous section, the number of bits that can be accommodated are different
in each of the aggregation levels and as we know the number of bits in each of the DCI formats
are less than the number of bits shown above. Lets take a example of DCI format 1A for 10Mhz,
the total number of bits after packing all the fields will be 25 and after adding the 16 bit CRC,
this will add upto 41 bits. Now the scheduler will have to decide, which aggregation to be used
for a DCI format and it takes that decision based on following factors,

 Worst case scenario – this factor is considered for all the common DCIs such as SIB, RAR,
Paging etc and the reason for assuming the worst case is, these DCIs are supposed to be
decoded by all the UEs connected to the eNodeB, no matter how far or near they are to the
eNodeB, hence most likely the scheduler will use the highest possible aggregation level of 8
to schedule these DCIs, so for the above example of DCI 1A, the 41 bits are rate matched and
bloated to 576 bits giving a very good forward error correction protection for these bits. Its
also worth noting that the 3GPP spec mandates mapping any of the common RNTI DCI
such as SI, RAR, Paging to either of aggregation level 8 or 4
 CQI based – This factor is used based on the CQI reported by a UE and mostly for the
dedicated DCIs , the scheduler will consider the CQI reported by the UE and decided if the
corresponding PDCCH should be robustly coded or lightly coded. If the CQI is low, then
scheduler will use a higher aggregation level and lower aggregation level otherwise
 RNTI wise – This again mandates the scheduler to always use aggregation level 4 or 8 for
common RNTIs such as SI, P, RA and allows the scheduler to choose any aggregation levels
for dedicated RNTIs such as C, TPC etc
So now we know that, higher the aggregation level used, better is the probability for the UE to
successfully decode the DCI, then why at all lower the aggregation level? The answer is
capacity. Higher the aggregation level, more number of subcarriers are required for a given user,
hence reducing the amount of space available in the control channel for other UE DCIs, which in
turn will control how many users the scheduler will be able to schedule in the given subframe. So
the scheduler has to trade-off between efficiency and capacity. Also, higher aggregation levels
leads to more subcarriers per DCI, which can lead to higher CFI and in turn this will decrease the
number of OFDM symbols available for PDSCH, which will again result in higher PDSCH
coding rate compared to lower CFI and hence again reducing the probability of PDSCH
decoding

Rate matching in PDSCH is a very important block in baseband processing. The basic function
of rate matching module is to match the number of bits in transport block(TB) to the number of
bits that can be transmitted in the given allocation. Rate matching involves many things
including sub-block interleaving, bit collection and pruning. Here is how rate matching is
performed in PDSCH,
The PDSCH TB is segmented into code blocks (CB) if its size is greater than 6144 bits,
otherwise there will be no segmentation of the TB, but the TB and CB will be of same size

Rate matching is performed over code blocks and is performed after the code blocks have
undergone turbo encoding. The turbo encoder performs a 1/3 rate encoding, i.e for every single
input bit, it gives 3 output bits in which the first bit is the original input bit called as a systematic
bit and the remaining two bits are interleaved version of the input bit called parity1 and parity2
bits. These three streams of systematic, partity1 and parity2 bits are fed as input to the rate
matching module,

Let us consider the following,

Scenario 1
Transport Block size - 208 bits
Code Block size - 208 bits (as the TB is smaller than 6144 bits)
Modulation Scheme - QPSK
Modulation & Coding scheme index - 1
Number of resource blocks - 8
Resource block start index - 0
System Bandwidth - 5Mhz (25 RB)
Sub-frame Number - 4
CFI - 2
Transmit Antennas - 1
G value - 2208
Below are the steps in rate matching,

Step-1: Perform sub block interleaving

In sub block interleaving the systematic, parity1 and parity2 bits each having (D = 208+24CRC
bits) bits now are arranged into a matrix having 32 columns (C). The number of rows (R) is
determined such that,
(CxR)>= D, so in this case R = D/C = 232/32 = 7.25 ~ 8
Since 232 is not divisible by 32 we will have to add 24 bits of <NULLS> at the end of the matrix
to fit in the above equation. So now each of the matrix will be of size 256 bits, which shall be
denoted as Kπ
Now each of the matrix is rearranged using a inter-column permutation as per the standard
specification, after which they are read out column by column to form the virtual circular buffer
denoted by Wκ
So at the end of this step we have following details,

 Kπ = 256
Step-2: Bit collection, pruning and transmission
The input to this step is the virtual circular buffer of size 3Kπ = 3×256 = 768 bits
The bits in this circular buffer are arranged as below,

 The first Kπ bits (256) are from the subblock interleaved matrix of systematic bits
 In the remaining 2Kπ bits (512), all even bits are from the subblock interleaved matrix of
parity1 bits and all odd bits are from the subblock interleaved matrix of parity2 bits
Next, we need to calculate the Er value for the given code block r, which is the total number of
rate matched output bits, the calculation is as follows,
1. Calculate Ncβ, which denotes the soft buffer size for current code block (232 bits)
 Ncβ = min(floor(NiR/NumCodeBlocks), 3Kπ) = 768
 Where NumCodeBlocks = 1
2. Calculate NiR, which denotes the soft buffer size for current transport block (232 bits)
 NiR = floor(Nsoft/(Kmimo x min(Mdl_harq,Mlimit))) = 154656
 Where Nsoft = 1237248 for Category3 UE, Kmimo = 1, Mdl_harq = 8, Mlimit = 8
3. Calculate G’ = G/(NlxQm) = 1104
 where Nl = 2, Qm = 2
4. Calculate γ = G’%NumCodeBlocks = 0
5. Calculate Er = Nl x Qm x floor(G’/NumCodeBlocks) if r <= NumCodeBlocks-γ-1
 where r is the current Codeblock index
6. Calculate Er = Nl x Qm x ceil(G’/NumCodeBlocks) if r > NumCodeBlocks-γ-1
 where r is the current Codeblock index
7. So in this case Er = Nl x Qm x floor(G’/NumCodeBlocks) = 2208
8. Calculate K0 = R x ((2 x ceil(Ncβ/(8xR)) x Rvidx)+2 ),
 Where Rvidx is the redundancy version, based on the Rvidx value there can be 4
different K0 values
 When Rvidx = 0, K0 = 16
 When Rvidx = 1, K0 = 208
 When Rvidx = 2, K0 = 400
 When Rvidx = 3, K0 = 592
Step-3: Filling the Rate match output buffer
So now, we have the size of rate matched output buffer Er and also K0, based on these
the 3Kπ bits from virtual soft buffer are filled into the rate matched output buffer as below,
k = 0;
j = 0;
i = 0;
while(k<Er)
{
i = (Ko+j)%Ncβ;
if(w[i] != )
 {
e[k] = w[i];
k = k+1;
}
j = j+1;
}

Similarly lets consider another scenario of bigger TB size having 2 CB, please refer above
scenario for calculations,

Scenario 2
Transport Block size - 7992 bits
Code Block 0 size - 4032 bits
Code Block 1 size - 4032 bits
Modulation Scheme - 64 QAM
Modulation & Coding scheme index - 17
Number of resource blocks - 25
Resource block start index - 0
System Bandwidth - 5Mhz (25 RB)
Sub-frame Number - 4
CFI - 2
Transmit Antennas - 1
G value - 20700 bits
So below are the calculations,

 Calculate R = D/C = 4032/32 = 126

 Calculate Kπ = 4032, and 3Kπ = 4032 x 3 = 12096
 Calculate NiR = 154656
 Calculate Ncβ = min(floor(NiR/NumCodeBlocks), 3Kπ) = 12096
 Calculate G’ = G/(Nl x Qm) = 3450
 Calculate γ = G’%NumCodeBlocks = 0
 Calculate Er for CB0 Er[0] = Nl x Qm x floor(G’/NumCodeBlocks) = 10350
 Calculate Er for CB1 Er[1] = Nl x Qm x floor(G’/NumCodeBlocks) = 10350
 Note that sum of Er[0] & Er[0] is equal to G
 Next calculate K0
 After this the Step-3 is performed as said above

Cell Search Procedure in LTE

What is a cell search procedure?Who does this? Why do we need this?How is this done? I will
try to answer these questions related to the LTE cell search procedure.

A cell search is nothing but a procedure that, any sniffer or a UE shall perform in order to get
more details about the nearby eNodeB/cell. So this is the first step that a UE shall do, as soon as
it is powered on. The cell search procedure, is the UE’s way of acquiring cell specific
information and this, the UE has to perform once or several times based on the condition of the
network.
Basically the steps involved in cell search are as follows, after the UE is powered ON

1. It shall check for power levels of different LTE bands to chose the best one with good power
2. Try doing a CP correlation, to get following details,
1. Symbol boundary
3. After the CP correlation peak has been found, the UE shall look for the downlink
synchronization signals such as the PSS/SSS. The PSS and SSS will convey many
information to the UE such as the,
1. N_ID_1 from PSS
2. N_ID_2 from SSS
3. Physical layer cell ID using formula Cell_ID = 3*N_ID_2+N_ID_1
4. Duplexing mode FDD/TDD from the position of PSS & SSS within the radio frame
5. Slot boundary
6. Subframe Number from SSS
4. The next step in the cell search is decoding the MIB information, which is transmitted on the
PBCH, from which the UE will get these informations,
1. System bandwidth
2. PHICH duration
3. PHICH resource type
4. System frame number
5. Number of Transmit antennas used by eNodeB ( This is got from MIB CRC and not from
MIB Payload, unlike above parameters)
5. The PSS/SSS & PBCH are always mapped to the centre of the bandwidth, hence the UE can
decode these, even without knowing the system bandwidth but to decode all channels further
the UE needs to know all the above information collected till now, from Step-1
6. Now that, the UE has these information, it will be able to decode other control and data
channels such as the PCFICH, PDCCH, PDSCH, CSRS etc
7. Next the UE should decode the SIB information, which is transmitted by the eNodeB on
PDSCH with corresponding PDCCH scrambled with SI-RNTI value of 0xFFFF or 65535, to
decode PDSCH, the UE should decode corresponding PDCCH and to decode PDCCH, the
UE should know number of control symbols in the current subframe, which it gets from
decoding the PCFICH
8. Once after decoding PCFICH, the UE shall decode PDCCH for SI_RNTI, from which it gets
following informations,
1. SIB scheduling within the subframe
2. Modulation scheme used for SIB TB
3. Resource allocation type for SIB
4. Redundancy version
5. New data indicator
6. HARQ process number etc
9. The UE shall now perform a channel estimation/equalization on the PDSCH complex symbols
10. After getting all the information related to SIB, the UE shall actually decode the SIB1
message from PDSCH from which the UE shall get below information,
 1. Scheduling of other SIB messages such as the SIB2, SIB3 etc, where each SIB message
carrier unique eNodeB information
11. From subsequent SIB messages, the UE shall acquire below information,
1. PRACH opportunity window
2. PUCCH formats
3. DL CSRS power
4. TDD DL-UL config and special subframe type information
5. PLMN ID etc
12. Now, the UE has gathered enough information about the eNodeB and its time now for UE to
start talking to the eNodeB, which is called as Initial Attach procedure (Which shall be
discussed in a seperate article)
Just like the UE, there is also something called as a sniffer module, which does the same thing
but it is not a UE but is part of the eNodeB itself. The sniffer’s main task is to understand the
nearby eNodeB’s and optimize itself so that, its users are least affected by other eNodeB. The
sniffer is part of the Self Organizing Network popularly called as SON in LTE.

Transport Block Size Determination in LTE

Transport block is nothing but the payload for physical layer, specifically for the shared channel
such as PDSCH and PUSCH. The size of the transport block is chosen using several parameters,
which are derived from several other parameters. In short, the transport block size itself is
calculated in MAC/L2 and not in physical layer.
There is a different procedure for choosing the transport block size for each of the below
scenarios,

 For downlink
 For uplink
 For SI-RNTI, RA-RNTI and P-RNTI
 For special subframe in case of TDD frame configuration
Let us consider each case one by one later, but before that, let us see what all parameters are
considered for determining the transport block size,

1. Amount of data available from the user

2. Modulation scheme possible based on the CQI reported by the user
3. Number of resource blocks available in the physical resource grid
For Downlink/Uplink
The MAC has to first decide on the modulation scheme that can be scheduled to the user and
then check the physical resource grid for availability of the resource blocks. From this step the
MAC can decide upon the modulation and coding scheme index (I_MCS) and then decide upon
the number of resource blocks (N_PRB), that can be allocated to the user. After this step the
transport block size index (I_TBS) is derived from the look up table as specified in the LTE phy
specification 36.213 sec 7.1.7.1 for downlink and sec 8.6.1 for uplink.
So after knowing the I_TBS and N_PRB, there shall be a table look up as specified in LTE phy
specification 36.213, section 7.1.7.2.1, which will determine the transport block size for the
current subframe for the user.
For SI-RNTI, RA-RNTI, P-RNTI
This is a special case, where the procedure for transport block size will deviate from its normal
procedure. In this case, the below procedure is done,

 For DCI format1A

 Modulation scheme is always QPSK
 I_TBS is set to I_MCS
 N_PRB is decided by the least significant bit of the 2 bit TPC command field, N_PRB=2 if
the bit is 0, 3 otherwise
 Table look is done using N_PRB and I_TBS from the table 7.1.7.2.1, which restricts the
maximum transport block size for these RNTI to about 2216 bits
 Please note here that, the N_PRB is set to 2 or 3 only for choosing the transport block size
and the scheduler has right to choose any number of resource blocks for mapping the data
on the physical resource grid and at times it has to do that mandatority because of the
reason that, for a transport block size of 2216 (worst case), if the physical layer maps it
onto 3 resource blocks the coding rate will exceed the permissible value of 0.93 in LTE and
the UE will skip decoding the transport block, this again is because of the restriction that,
no other modulation scheme other than QPSK can be used
 For DCI format1C
 I_TBS is set to I_MCS
 Table look is done using N_PRB and I_TBS from the table 7.1.7.2.3-1
For Special Subframe in TDD
In case of a special subframe in TDD the transport block size is chosen as below,

 N_PRB is set to maximum of (ceil(N_PRB*0.75),1), this is due to the fact that, in special
subframes, there shall be lesser number of symbols in the subframe compared to a normal
subframe and hence lesser physical resource to map the data.
 Please note that, the above step is done only to choose the transport block size and not for
mapping. For eg, if the original N_PRB was 40, the as per the formula the
corrected N_PRB will be 30, and now the transport block size is chosen using
the N_PRB=30, where as the transport block is actually mapped on to 40 PRBs itself
Apart from this, the MAC scheduler always has to keep in mind, the physical layer coding rate
before scheduling for a user. The maximum supported coding rate by LTE UEs for the initial
transmission is always set to 0.93. The physical layer coding rate is the ratio of transport block
size and available physical resources in the downlink/uplink grid.

Cyclic Prefix and Its Significance in LTE

What is cyclic prefix or why do we need the CP in LTE or for that matter in any wireless/OFDM
system? The answer lies in the name itself. Cyclic indicates that, the CP maintains the cyclic
nature of something and prefix says it is added at the beginning.
Basically, the CP is nothing but a portion of the signal itself, which is copied and added to the
beginning of the signal. The below diagram should explain more about the same,

Cyclic Prefix for LTE

Why CP is added?
Now to understand why CP is added, you should know the basics of FFT/IFFT or the
significance of doing a FFT/IFFT over any signal. In LTE, for downlink, an IFFT is performed
to realize the OFDM concept. Now, first place what does FFT does?What does IFFT does to a
signal? If you take a FFT of a signal, you are basically taking the signal from time domain to
frequency domain and for IFFT, it is the vice versa, i.e from frequency domain to time domain.

Lets see what happens when we take a FFT of a simple sine wave, below illustration depicts the
same,

FFT/IFFT Illustration
In the above figures, first let us consider,

Figure-B : In this figure you can see a time domain signal, which is a sine wave of frequency
1Hz and a FFT is performed over this sine wave and the result is on the right. You can see 2
spikes on either sides of the axis, lets neglect the spike on the negative side of the quadrant, so on
the positive side, the spike is seen at 1Hz co-ordinate on the frequency axis. What does this
indicate? Simple, the FFT of a time domain signal gives you the different frequencies within that
signal, so we have a single spike which indicates the time domain signal is a sine wave of
frequency 1Hz.
Now how can we relate this to CP? In case of LTE, the encoding is performed in frequency
domain and then we perform an IFFT, which is exactly the reverse of the process, we are doing
in above figure. We perform a 1024 point IFFT, which means, instead of single spike, we will
have 1024 different spikes and we perform a IFFT over these tones and we get a time domain
signal, to which we the CP and transmit over the air.

Now at the receiver side, he does an FFT to get back these 1024 tones back and start decoding.
Since, we know that a wireless channel is more prone to different types of disturbances, such as
multipath, AWGN, Doppler etc, the signal is more prone to corruption or a delay. So what
happens when this delayed signal is received at the receiver? Will he be able
to successfully perform a FFT to get back the 1024 tones? Lets see the effect in the Figure-A
Figure-A: Lets assume this is a receiver, where he has received a delayed version of the time
domain signal. He was supposed to get start receiving the signal at time=A, but he got a signal
starting from time=B. So now, if there was no CP added then he could have possibly lost the
portion of signal between A & B, but because the transmitter added the CP, whose length is more
than B-A, the lost signal can be found at the end of the signal (Indicated in red color, marked as
CP). Because of the CP, the continuity of the sine wave is still maintained and when the receiver
does an FFT of the same, he will still get a spike at 1Hz because of the continuity of the signal.
So, thats all about the CP. CP not only helps in the continuity, but also in avoiding the inter
symbol interference. Which means, even when multiple reflected copies of signals get added at
the receiver, he should still be able to distinguish between symbols and CP makes sure this is
maintained.

CP Length
What should be the ideal CP length? Simple, the CP length should be the maximum possible
delay, introduced due to the farthest supported radius in LTE. That means, if a eNodeB supports
coverage of 10Kms, then the CP length should be more than the maximum time the signal can
take to reach from a UE , which is 10Km away from the eNodeB. That, is why we have two
different types of CP, normal and extended CP. So if a eNodeB needs to support a very large
coverage area, then he should support extended CP to accomodate for the different multipath
delays.

What is SIB in LTE?

I think it is a long time since I could write something on this blog. And this couldn’t be a better
post. I will give a brief overview of SIB here.

SIB – System information block, is one important message that the UE will be looking to decode
from the eNodeb’s broadcast.
How is SIB transmitted? SIB is transmitted by the eNodeB using PDCCH and PDSCH. The
PDCCH will carry a DCI (usually a format 1A) that is scrambled with the SI-RNTI (whose value
is 65535 or 0xFFFF) and in the same subframe a system information block is encoded by the
MAC/L2 as a physical layer transport block which will be taken by the PDSCH encoder on the
L1 and the L1 will add a 24 bit TB CRC and CB CRCs (if applicable) The SIB TB will undergo
the same process as other TBs would go but the SIB is always transmitted using single antenna
or transmit diversity and never in MIMO mode
How will UE know when to decode SIB? There are several SIB messages such as SIB1, SIB2,
SIB3 and so on. The SIB1 is a fixed periodicity SIB and it is transmitted at a periodicity of 20ms
and on subframe-5 always. This is known to the UE and it will look for PDCCH with SI-RNTI
on that particular radio frame/subframe combination, once it decodes SIB1, it will be able to
know periodicities of other SIB messages as this scheduling information will be part of SIB1
message. SIB2 is another crucial message that will inform the UE about individual physical layer
channel capabilities, configuration etc. One thing to be noted here is that once the content of
SIB1 gets changed then it has to remain same for next 80ms and the change can happen only on
a radioframe (modulo) 80 boundary.
How important is SIB to UE? Very important and mandatory requirement for the UE to gain
access or even attempt an access to the network. Only after decoding the SIB the UE will come
to know about the sequences it has to trasnmit in PRACH or the transmit power at which
eNodeB is transmitting or the subframe/UL-DL pattern in case of TDD. So if the UE is not able
to decode SIB it will simply abandon that network
Some of the important other SIB messages are used for earthquake and Tsunami warning as well,
mostly in areas like Japan where earthquake is so frequent. So if you see a flashing
earthquake/Tsunami warning message on your LTE phone then it got it from the SIB

LTE Downlink Frame Structure

This article will explain the downlink frame structure. For the beginners, there is always a
confusion about the frame structure, the physical channels etc, so to make their job easy, I am
writing this article.

To start with, what does the downlink frame structure consists of? The answer is simple, it
contains the downlink channels and signals. Refer article LTE Physical Downlink Channels for
more details. The LTE frame is nothing but a imaginary grid of time vs frequency , where there
are placeholders for different channels and signals, for Eg: the dowlink control channels are
always restricted to first 3 symbols or less, of the subframe. The frame structure changes
depending on the cyclic prefix type, bandwidth and duplexing modes.
Currently let us focus on a 10MHz, FDD, Normal CP type downlink frame structure, with
following configuration,

 Subframe number – 0
 Duplexing mode – FDD
 System bandwidth – 10Mhz
 Number of control symbols – 2
 Number of users allocated – 1
 Number of resource blocks dedicated to the above user – 20
 Resource block start index – 0
 Number of Transmit antennas – 1
So with the above configurations, lets see, how exactly the subframe will look like in frequency
domain, also since this is a subframe-0, we will have PBCH and PSS/SSS always allocated for
FDD. The below diagram shows the downlink frame structure for the above configuration,

Downlink Frame Structure

The Mathematics
Lets see the numbers here, which are fixed for given bandwidth

 Number of resource blocks(RB) across the 10MHz = 50

 Number of subcarriers/tones per RB = 12
 Number of subcarriers per sysbol = 50 x 12 = 600
 Number of symbols per subframe = 14
 Number of subcarriers per subframe = 14 x 600 = 8400
 Number of reference signals subcarriers per RB = 2
 Subcarriers occupied by PBCH = 72 (Central 6 RBs, remains unchanged for all LTE
bandwidths, configurations)
 Number of symbols in which PBCH is present = 4 (First 4 symbols of second slot)
 Subcarriers occupied by PSS = 72 (Central 6 RBs, remains unchanged for all LTE
bandwidths, configurations)
 Subcarriers occupied by SSS = 72 (Central 6 RBs, remains unchanged for all LTE
bandwidths, configurations)
CCH – Control Channels
The CCH is group of downlink control channels, which contains PDCCH, PCFICH, PHICH. The
mapping of PCFICH is determined by the system bandwidth, and hence, for a given bandwidth,
the position of PCFICH remains constant. The PHICH mapping depends on several factors
related to previous uplink grant configurations, for which the ACK/NACK is being currently
transmitted, the determining factors are, RB start index, DMRS cyclic shift. The PDCCH
mapping depends again on several factors such as the PDCCH format, aggregation level for the
user etc. What so ever, the CCH occupies all 600 subcarriers always.
Reference Signals
The symbol 0, 4, 7, 11 contains the downlink reference signals known as the cell specific
reference signals, which are mapped to every sixth subcarrier in these symbols, the start index
for mapping of these is determined by the cell ID of the eNodeB. These reference signals are
unique to every antenna, and hence, if more than 1 antenna is used for transmission, there would
be more reference signals mapped in the subframe. Similar to the cell specific reference signals,
there is also UE specific reference signals which are of similar nature but are used only in case of
beam forming. These reference signals are used by the UE for downlink channel estimation and
equalization.

PDSCH/User data
Since the number of resource blocks allocated to the user is 20RB, we can see that his data is
mapped onto the first 20 resource block starting RB index 0 to RB index 19. The actual amount
of the user data may be more or less than the amount of space available in the given allocation
space of 20RB, so a procedure called rate matching is done to fit the user data into the available
space. The number called G-Value gives the number of subcarriers/tones available for the user
given his allocation. The ration of actual user data to G-value is nothing but the coding rate for
that user. There are different type of resource allocation types available for downlink, such as the
Type-0, Type-1 and Type-2. In the current scenario, we have used type-2 localized resource
mapping.

PBCH
The PBCH carriers the vital system information such as the system bandwidth , PHICH
information etc. The PBCH is always transmitted in all subframe 0 of all radio frames, it
occupies the central 6 RBs, which enables the UE to decode the PBCH irrespective of the system
bandwidth.

PSS/SSS
The PSS and SSS are also mapped to every subframe 0 and 5 in case of FDD, the position
remains same though, i.e PSS is mapped to 6th symbol and SSS to the 5th symbol of first slot.
Even the PSS/SSS are always mapped to the central 6 resource blocks/72 subcarriers of the
frame, again to enable the UE to decode these irrespective of the bandwidth.

LTE Initial Attach Procedure in Picture

Initial attach is the procedure that happens when a UE just enters the network. The below should
explain it pictorially. The procedure mainly consists of few message transfers on both uplink &
downlink. The diagram is mainly from the physical layer point of view.
 Initial Attach Procedure in LTE
NOTE: Few of the messages in the procedure expects a acknowledgment from the receiving
entity, although its not shown in the figure, I assume, its understood.