Devices configured with jointly aggregated TDD and FDD component carriers

• US 9,794,050 B2
• Filed: 07/01/2014
• Issued: 10/17/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 07/01/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: HTC Corporation
• Original Assignee: HTC Corporation
• Inventors: Wu, Chih-Yao, Wu, Chih-Hsiang
• Primary Examiner(s): Ghowrwal, Omar
• Assistant Examiner(s): Brockman, Angel
• Application Number:
  US14/320,662
• Publication Number:
  US 20150003304A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,204 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0077 Cooperative coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/1854 Scheduling and prioritising arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/001 the frequencies being arranged in component carriers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0055 Physical resource allocation for ACK/NACK for physical mapping arrangements in ARQ protocols H04L1/1861
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/14 Two-way operation using the same type of signal, i.e. duplex
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/04 Error control

Abstract

A method of assigning PUCCH transmission timing for a mobile device configured with jointly aggregated TDD and FDD CCs includes determining a UL transmission timing in a first subframe for a corresponding feedback in response to a first DL transmission in a second subframe on a first cell, where the second subframe is k subframes prior to the first subframe; and transmitting the corresponding feedback of the first DL transmission in the first subframe on a second cell according to the first UL transmission timing of the first DL transmission of the first cell; where the first cell is on a TDD CC and the first cell has no PUCCH to transmit the corresponding feedback of the first DL transmission, and the second cell is on an FDD CC and the second cell uses PUCCH to transmit the corresponding feedback of the first DL transmission of the first cell.

Claims

1. A communication device for assigning transmission timing of Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) configured with jointly aggregated Time Division Duplex (TDD) and Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) component carriers, comprising:

a processing means; and

a storage unit, coupled to the processing means, for storing a program code, wherein the program code instructs the processing means to execute the steps of;

receiving a first downlink (DL) transmission in a second subframe on a first cell;

determining a first uplink (UL) transmission timing in a first subframe for a corresponding feedback in response to the first DL transmission in the second subframe on the first cell, where the second subframe is k subframes prior to the first subframe; and

transmitting the corresponding feedback of the first DL transmission in the first subframe on a second cell according to the first UL transmission timing;

wherein the first cell is on a TDD component carrier and the first cell has no PUCCH to transmit the corresponding feedback of the first DL transmission;

wherein the second cell is on an FDD component carrier and the second cell uses PUCCH to transmit the corresponding feedback of the first DL transmission of the first cell;

wherein is constant over all subframe numbers; and

wherein the program code further instructs steps of;

setting a Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) round trip time (RTT) Timer to 8 subframes for reception of retransmission of the first DL transmission on the first cell.

2. The communication device of claim 1, wherein k belongs to a downlink association set depending on the subframe number of the first subframe on the second cell and the UL-DL configuration of the first cell.

3. The communication device of claim 1, wherein the corresponding feedback is a Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) feedback corresponding to the first DL transmission in the second subframe of the first cell.

4. The communication device of claim 1, wherein the program code further instructs the processing means to execute steps of receiving a second DL transmission on a third cell;

and determining a second UL transmission timing of second DL transmission of the third cell independently, irrespective of the first UL transmission timing of the first DL transmission of the first cell;

wherein the third cell is a TDD component carrier and has different TDD configuration than the first cell.

5. The communication device of claim 1, wherein the program code further instructs the processing means to execute steps of:

determining a reference TDD configuration according to a combination of TDD

configurations of the first cell and the third cell; and

determining a second UL transmission timing in a second subframe of the first DL transmission of the first cell as the first UL transmission timing in the first subframe of the first cell, wherein k belongs to a downlink association set depending on the subframe number of the second subframe and the determined reference TDD configuration; and

determining a third UL transmission timing in a third subframe of the second DL transmission of the third cell, wherein k belongs to the downlink association set depending on the subframe number of the third subframe and the determined reference TDD configuration.

6. A communication device for assigning transmission timing of Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) configured with jointly aggregated Time Division Duplex (TDD) and Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) component carriers, comprising:

a processing means; and

a storage unit, coupled to the processing means, for storing a program code, wherein the program code instructs the processing means to execute steps of;

receiving a first downlink (DL) transmission on a first cell;

determining a first uplink (UL) transmission timing of the first cell by associating a UL subframe on a second cell with at least one DL subframe on the first cell, wherein every DL subframe on the first cell is associated to one UL subframe on the second cell, and wherein the at least one DL subframe is k subframes prior to the UL subframe; and

transmitting a corresponding feedback of the first DL transmission in the associated UL subframe on the second cell;

wherein the first cell is on an FDD component carrier and the first cell has no PUCCH to transmit the corresponding feedback of the first DL transmission; and

wherein the second cell is on a TDD component carrier and the second cell uses PUCCH to transmit the corresponding feedback of the first DL transmission of the first cell;

wherein k falls between 4 and 6 when the second cell is configured with UL-DL Configuration 0, k falls between 4 and 7 when the second cell is configured with UL-DL Configuration 1, k falls between 4 and 8 when the second cell is configured with UL-DL Configuration 2, k falls between 4 and 11 when the second cell is configured with UL-DL Configuration 3, k falls between 4 and 12 when the second cell is configured with UL-DL Configuration 4, k falls between 4 and 13 when the second cell is configured with UL-DL Configuration 5, and k fails between 4 and 7 when the second cell is configured with UL-DL Configuration 6.

7. The communication device of claim 6, wherein k belongs to a downlink association set depending on the subframe number of the UL subframe and the UL-DL configuration of the second cell.

8. The communication device of claim 6, wherein k is 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 for the UL subframe in subframe 2 and k is 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 for the UL subframe in subframe 7 if the second cell is configured with UL-DL Configuration 2.

9. The communication device of claim 6, wherein k is 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, or 11 for the UL subframe in subframe 2, k is 5 or 6 for the UL subframe in subframe 3 and k is 4 or 5 for the UL subframe in subframe 4 if the second cell is configured with UL-DL Configuration 3.

10. The communication device of claim 6, wherein k is 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, or 12 for the UL subframe in subframe 2 and k is 4, 5, 6, or 7 for the UL subframe in subframe 3 if the second cell is configured with UL-DL Configuration 4.

11. The communication device of claim 6, wherein k is 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, or 13 for the UL subframe in subframe 2 if the second cell is configured with UL-DL Configuration 5.

12. The communication device of claim 6, wherein the corresponding feedback is a Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) feedback corresponding to the first DL transmission in the at least one DL subframe.

13. The communication device of claim 6, wherein the program code further instructs the processing means to execute the following steps:

receiving a second DL transmission in a third cell, wherein the third cell is on a TDD component carrier;

determining a reference TDD configuration according to a combination of TDD configurations of the second cell and the third cell; and

determining a second UL transmission timing of the second DL transmission of the third cell which follows a PUCCH feedback timing of the reference TDD configuration.

14. The communication device of claim 6, wherein the program code further instructs the processing means to execute the following steps:

determining a reference TDD configuration according to a combination of TDD configurations of the second cell and the third cell; and

determining a third UL transmission timing of the first DL transmission of the first cell as the first UL transmission timing of the first DL transmission of the first cell which follows a PUCCH feedback timing of the reference TDD configuration;

wherein the UL subframe on the second cell is associated with the at least one DL subframe on the first cell based on assuming the UL-DL configuration of the second cell is the reference TDD configuration.

15. The communication device of claim 6, wherein the program code further instructs the processing means to execute steps of:

setting a Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) round trip time (RTT) Timer to 4+k subframes for reception of retransmission on the first cell.

16. A communication device configured with jointly aggregated Time Division Duplex (TDD) and Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) component carriers, comprising:

a processing means; and

a storage unit, coupled to the processing means, for storing a program code, wherein the program code instructs the processing means to execute steps of;

receiving a first downlink (DL) data from an first component carrier (CC); and

setting a first round trip time (RTT) Timer to a period for reception of retransmission on the first CC when the communication device is configured with a first Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) on a second CC for transmitting an acknowledge (ACK) or a negative-acknowledge (NACK) feedback for the first DL data;

when the first CC is an FDD CC and the second CC is a TDD CC, the period equals to 4+k subframes, wherein k is an interval between a DL transmission of the first DL data and a transmission of the ACK or NACK feedback for the first DL data;

when the first CC is a TDD CC and the second CC is an FDD CC, the period equals to 8 subframes.

17. The communication device of claim 16, wherein k is 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 for a UL subframe in subframe 2 and k is 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 for a UL subframe in subframe 7 if the first CC is configured with UL-DL Configuration 2;

wherein k is 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, or 11 for a UL subframe in subframe 2, k is 5 or 6 for a UL subframe in subframe 3 and k is 4 or 5 for a UL subframe in subframe 4 if the first CC is configured with UL-DL Configuration 3;

wherein k is 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, or 12 for a UL subframe in subframe 2 and k is 4, 5, 6, or 7 for a UL subframe in subframe 3 if the first CC is configured with UL-DL Configuration 4;

wherein k is 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, or 13 for a UL subframe in subframe 2 if the first CC is configured with UL-DL Configuration 5.