Method of indicating downlink control channel and related communication device

• US 9,480,059 B2
• Filed: 06/13/2013
• Issued: 10/25/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/15/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Acer, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Industrial Technology Research Institute
• Inventors: Lee, Chien-Min
• Primary Examiner(s): Ton, Dang
• Assistant Examiner(s): Aung, Sai
• Application Number:
  US13/917,618
• Publication Number:
  US 20130336253A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,230 Days
• Field of Search: 370/329, 370/328, 370/468
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0053 Allocation of signaling, i.e. of overhead other than pilot signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/23 in the downlink direction of a wireless link, i.e. towards a terminal

Abstract

A method of indicating a downlink (DL) control channel for a network of a wireless communication system method comprises configuring an enhanced physical control format indicator channel (ePCFICH) according to an amount of resource for transmitting an enhanced physical DL control channel (ePDCCH) of a subframe, wherein the ePDCCH is dedicate to a communication device of the wireless communication system or to a group to which the communication device belongs; and transmitting the ePCFICH to the communication device via a plurality of bits of a physical hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) indicator channel (PHICH) of the subframe, to indicate the amount of resource for transmitting the ePDCCH to the communication device.

Claims

1. A method of indicating a downlink (DL) control channel for a network of a wireless communication system, the method comprising:

configuring an enhanced physical control format indicator channel (ePCFICH) according to an amount of resource for transmitting an enhanced physical DL control channel (ePDCCH) of a subframe, wherein the ePDCCH is dedicate to a communication device of the wireless communication system or to a group to which the communication device belongs; and

transmitting the ePCFICH to the communication device via a plurality of bits of a physical hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) indicator channel (PHICH) of the subframe, to indicate the amount of resource for transmitting the ePDCCH to the communication device;

wherein the plurality of bits of the PHICH is encoded according to a code division multiplexing (CDM) rule of the PHICH;

wherein a location of the plurality of bits of the PHICH is determined according to at least one of a cell-specific identifier, a subframe index of the subframe, a DL system bandwidth of the wireless communication system, system information, a UE-specific signaling and a UE group-specific signaling; and

wherein a location of the plurality of bits of the ePDCCH is determined according to at least one of a cell-specific identifier, a subframe index of the subframe, a DL system bandwidth of the wireless communication system, system information, a UE-specific signaling and a UE group-specific signaling.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the amount of resource is a number of resource blocks (RBs) or a number of resource block groups (RBGs).

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the ePCFICH is transmitted by a first transmission point of the network, and the ePDCCH is transmitted by a second transmission point of the network.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the ePCFICH is transmitted by the network via a first component carrier, and the ePDCCH is transmitted by the network via a second component carrier.

5. A method of indicating a downlink (DL) control channel for a network of a wireless communication system, the method comprising:

configuring an enhanced physical control format indicator channel (ePCFICH) according to an amount of resource for transmitting an enhanced physical DL control channel (ePDCCH) of a subframe, wherein the ePDCCH is dedicate to a communication device of the wireless communication system or to a group to which the communication device belongs; and

transmitting the ePCFICH to the communication device in at least one of a punctured part of a physical DL control channel (PDCCH) and a puncture part of a physical DL shared channel (PDSCH) of the subframe, to indicate the amount of the resource for transmitting the ePDCCH to the communication device;

wherein the punctured part of the PDCCH is determined according to at least one of a cell-specific identifier, a subframe index of the subframe, a DL system bandwidth of the wireless communication system, system information, a UE-specific signaling and a UE group-specific signaling;

wherein the punctured part of the PDSCH is determined according to at least one of a cell-specific identifier, a subframe index of the subframe, a DL system bandwidth of the wireless communication system, system information, a UE-specific signaling and a UE group-specific signaling.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the amount of resource is a number of resource blocks (RBs) or a number of resource block groups (RBGs).

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the ePCFICH is transmitted by a first transmission point of the network, and the ePDCCH is transmitted by a second transmission point of the network.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the ePCFICH is transmitted by the network via a first component carrier, and the ePDCCH is transmitted by the network via a second component carrier.