WO2018102098A1 - Systems, methods and devices for managing harq buffer status - Google Patents

Abstract

A user equipment (UE) indicates hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) buffer memory size to a RAN node and reports HARQ buffer loading to the RAN node. For example, the UE can support reporting of HARQ memory size as part of UE capability or as associated with a UE category. In another example, the UE supports HARQ buffer status reports from the UE to the RAN node, regarding the actual loading of the HARQ buffer at the UE. In another example, the HARQ loading report can be triggered by the RAN node or provided by the UE based on an event trigger.

Description

SYSTEMS, METHODS AND DEVICES FOR MANAGING HARQ BUFFER STATUS

Related Application

[0001] This application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. § 119(e) of U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/428,340 filed November 30, 2016, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Technical Field

[0002] The present disclosure relates to cellular communications and more specifically to managing a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) buffer status.

Background

[0003] Wireless mobile communication technology uses various standards and protocols to transmit data between a base station and a wireless mobile device. Wireless communication system standards and protocols can include the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) long term evolution (LTE); the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.16 standard, which is commonly known to industry groups as worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX); and the IEEE 802.11 standard for wireless local area networks (WLAN), which is commonly known to industry groups as Wi-Fi. In 3GPP radio access networks (RANs) in LTE systems, the base station can include a RAN Node such as a Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN) Node B (also commonly denoted as evolved Node B, enhanced Node B, eNodeB, or eNB) and/or Radio Network Controller (RNC) in an E-UTRAN, which communicate with a wireless communication device, known as user equipment (UE). In fifth generation (5G) wireless RANs, RAN Nodes can include a 5G Node, new radio (NR) node or g Node B (gNB).

[0004] RANs use a radio access technology (RAT) to communicate between the RAN Node and UE. RANs can include global system for mobile communications (GSM), enhanced data rates for GSM evolution (EDGE) RAN (GERAN), Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN), and/or E-UTRAN, which provide access to communication services through a core network. Each of the RANs operates according to a specific 3GPP RAT. For example, the GERAN implements GSM and/or EDGE RAT, the UTRAN implements universal mobile telecommunication system (UMTS) RAT or other 3GPP RAT, and the E- UTRAN implements LTE RAT.

[0005] A core network can be connected to the UE through the RAN Node. The core network can include a serving gateway (SGW), a packet data network (PDN) gateway (PGW), an access network detection and selection function (ANDSF) server, an enhanced packet data gateway (ePDG) and/or a mobility management entity (MME).

Brief Description of the Drawings

[0006] FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating soft buffer partitioning across three carriers consistent with embodiments disclosed herein.

[0007] FIG. 2 is a communication diagram illustrating a method for managing a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) soft buffer consistent with embodiments disclosed herein.

[0008] FIG. 3 is a flow chart illustrating a method for managing a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) soft buffer consistent with embodiments disclosed herein.

[0009] FIG. 4 illustrates an architecture of a system 400 of a network in accordance with some embodiments.

[0010] FIG. 5 illustrates example components of a device 500 in accordance with some embodiments.

[0011] FIG. 6 illustrates example interfaces of baseband circuitry in accordance with some embodiments.

[0012] FIG. 7 is an illustration of a control plane protocol stack in accordance with some embodiments.

[0013] FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating components able to read instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium and perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein.

Detailed Description

[0014] A detailed description of systems and methods consistent with embodiments of the present disclosure is provided below. While several embodiments are described, it should be understood that the disclosure is not limited to any one embodiment, but instead encompasses numerous alternatives, modifications, and equivalents. In addition, while numerous specific details are set forth in the following description in order to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiments disclosed herein, some embodiments can be practiced without some or all of these details. Moreover, for the purpose of clarity, certain technical material that is known in the related art has not been described in detail in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the disclosure. [0015] Techniques, apparatus and methods are disclosed that enable a user equipment (UE) to indicate hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) buffer memory size to a RAN node and report HARQ buffer loading to the RAN node. For example, the UE can support reporting of HARQ memory size as part of UE capability or as associated with a UE category. In another example, the UE supports HARQ buffer status report from the UE to the RAN node, regarding the actual loading of the HARQ buffer at the UE. In an example, the HARQ loading report can be triggered by the RAN node or provided by the UE based on an event trigger.

[0016] An exact soft buffer management rule is not defined in the NR specification.

[0017] Embodiments described herein for storing received soft channel bits may facilitate more flexible control of HARQ memory at the UE side and provide different implementation approaches for storing the received soft channel bits as compared with a legacy approach. To prevent HARQ memory overflow, periodic and aperiodic UE feedback on HARQ buffer load can be used to assist gNB regarding use of incremental redundancy versions (IRV).

[0018] Carrier aggregation and support of higher order MTMO are considered as approaches to increase data rate performance of new radio (NR or 5G) systems. There are a number of LTE-A UEs available on the market that support aggregation of multiple carriers. It is expected that demands of CA capable UEs in NR with aggregation of multiple carriers in the future will become even higher. For example, with licensed-assisted access, a UE can operate with large number component carriers in the unlicensed bands to increase peak data rate.

[0019] It should be noted that a large number of the aggregated component carrier implies additional memory requirements at the UE to store received soft channel bits for HARQ operation. More specifically, the procedure for storing soft channel bits is described in case of decoding failure, where the UE has to equally split the available memory of size N_S'_Of_t between N°_e ^L _lls configured component carriers to store the received bits.

[0020] For example, storing soft channel bits, for both FDD and TDD, if the UE is configured with more than one serving cell, then for each serving cell, for at least K_MIM0 ^■ min( _{Di H}ARQ_> ^Umit transport blocks, upon decoding failure of a code block of a transport block, the UE shall store received soft channel bits corresponding to a range of at least w_k, w_k+1, ... , w_modik+nsB__{1 Ncb)}, where:

[0021] w_k = v^' for k = 0, ... , K_n - 1 [0022] C is the number of code blocks computed.

[0023] N_cb = min Q^] , ff_w) for DL-SCH and PCH transport channels. N_cb = K_w for UL- for SCH and MCH transport channels.

[0024] K_MIM0 is equal to 2 if the UE is configured to receive PDSCH transmissions based on transmission modes 3, 4 or 8, or 1 otherwise.

[0025] M_UMIT is a constant equal to 8.

[0026] M_DL__HARQ is the maximum number of DL HARQ processes.

[0027] Nc iisi^' s the number of configured serving cells.

[0028] If the UE signals ue-Category-vl020, N_S'_Of_t is the total number of soft channel bits according to the UE category indicated by ue-Category-vl020. Otherwise, N_S'_Of_t is the total number of soft channel bits according to the UE category indicated by UE-Category.

[0029] FIG. 1 illustrates soft buffer partitioning 100 across three carriers 102, 104 and 106. Each carrier is given memory for 8 HARQ processes.

[0030] It should be noted that the memory for storing soft channel bits can be one of the most expensive parts of the UE. In some embodiments, the memory size for storing soft channel bits is not scaled with a number of component carriers that can be aggregated at the UE receiver. A predetermined rule for storing the received soft channel can significantly limit possible UE-based implementation approaches to improve the storage efficiency of the received soft channel bits (e.g., usage of the LLR compression schemes, use of the off-chip memory, etc.). In embodiments, under given UE capability of the storing of a certain amount of the received soft channel bits, the approach for storing the received soft channel bits can be unspecified and left up to UE implementation. Yet, to avoid HARQ memory overflow at the UE, it is beneficial for the g B to be aware of current HARQ buffer loading status. Such information can be used at gNB to limit the amount of new information to be provided to the UE as part of HARQ retransmission. More specifically, if the current HARQ buffer load is low, the gNB can use new incremental redundancy versions (IRV) for retransmission that typically requires additional memory to store the new received coded bits. On the other hand, if current HARQ buffer loading is high, the gNB should avoid usage of the new IRV to minimize the amount of new coded bits transmitted to the UE.

[0031] Embodiments herein can relate to a HARQ buffer status report from a UE to a gNB. The HARQ buffer report indicates an amount of HARQ memory occupied by the received soft channel bits which were not correctly decoded. The amount of the used bits can be an absolute value or a relative value indicating ratio of the used HARQ buffer to the total HARQ buffer sizes or ratio of the unused HARQ buffer to the total HARQ buffer sizes.

[0032] A HARQ buffer status report can be triggered by the gNB using higher-layer (e.g., RRC or MAC) or physical layer control signaling. The UE, upon reception of the request, can generate and provide the HARQ buffer report to the gNB. The report can be periodic, where periodicity of the report can be defined by the gNB or predetermined. In the other

embodiments to save signaling overhead, the UE can support event triggers, where parameters of the triggers can be predefined or configured by the gNB. In an embodiment, once an event condition(s) is met, the UE generates and provides the HARQ buffer status report to the gNB. For example, the event trigger can be defined as "HARQ buffer usage above X value." In this example, once the HARQ buffer loading exceeds the X value, the UE reports to the gNB the HARQ buffer status information. The report can be a one shot report or a multi-shot report (i.e., semi-persistent). The report can contain an actual amount or indicator of used HARQ memory. In some embodiments, it is assumed that a specific scheme for storage of the received soft channel bits is undefined and left to UE implementation. FIG. 1 illustrates an example generic concept of a HARQ memory storage scheme.

[0033] FIG. 2 is a communication diagram 200 illustrating a method for managing a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) soft buffer. A UE 202 can report 206 a soft buffer size capability to a gNB 204. The gNB 204 can respond 208, 210 and acknowledge (ACK) or negative acknowledge (NACK), such as on a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) until the capability is known to the gNB 204.

[0034] In some embodiments, the gNB 204 requests 212 a HARQ soft buffer load report from UE 202. The request 212 can be for one report or a series of reports and can be periodic or aperiodic. The UE can then transmit 214 the HARQ soft buffer load report to the gNB 204.

[0035] In other embodiments, the UE can be preconfigured or network configured to provide a HARQ soft buffer load report. In an embodiment, the configuration is based on a trigger, such as a HARQ buffer load over a threshold (which can be a percentage or absolute value). When the UE determines to send a HARQ soft buffer load report, the UE transmits the HARQ soft buffer load report to the gNB 204 without receiving a request 212.

[0036] FIG. 3 is a flow chart 300 illustrating a method for managing a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) soft buffer. The method can be accomplished by systems such as those shown in conjunction with FIG. 1 and/or FIG. 4, including UE 401 or 402, and RAN node 411 or 412. In block 302, the UE generates a message indicating the memory size of the HARQ buffer. In block 304, the UE provides the message to the cellular interface for transmission to the RAN node. In block 306, the UE generates a HARQ buffer status report describing a loading of the HARQ buffer. In block 308, the UE provides the HARQ buffer status report to the cellular interface for transmission to the RAN node.

[0037] FIG. 4 illustrates an architecture of a system 400 of a network in accordance with some embodiments. The system 400 is shown to include a user equipment (UE) 401 and a UE 402. The UEs 401 and 402 are illustrated as smartphones (e.g., handheld touchscreen mobile computing devices connectable to one or more cellular networks), but may also comprise any mobile or non-mobile computing device, such as Personal Data Assistants (PDAs), pagers, laptop computers, desktop computers, wireless handsets, or any computing device including a wireless communications interface.

[0038] In some embodiments, any of the UEs 401 and 402 can comprise an Internet of Things (IoT) UE, which can comprise a network access layer designed for low-power IoT applications utilizing short-lived UE connections. An IoT UE can utilize technologies such as machine-to-machine (M2M) or machine-type communications (MTC) for exchanging data with an MTC server or device via a public land mobile network (PLMN), Proximity -Based Service (ProSe) or device-to-device (D2D) communication, sensor networks, or IoT networks. The M2M or MTC exchange of data may be a machine-initiated exchange of data. An IoT network describes interconnecting IoT UEs, which may include uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices (within the Internet infrastructure), with short-lived

connections. The IoT UEs may execute background applications (e.g., keep-alive messages, status updates, etc.) to facilitate the connections of the IoT network.

[0039] The UEs 401 and 402 may be configured to connect, e.g., communicatively couple, with a radio access network (RAN) 410. The RAN 410 may be, for example, an Evolved Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN), a NextGen RAN (NG RAN), or some other type of RAN. The UEs 401 and 402 utilize connections 403 and 404, respectively, each of which comprises a physical communications interface or layer (discussed in further detail below); in this example, the connections 403 and 404 are illustrated as an air interface to enable communicative coupling, and can be consistent with cellular communications protocols, such as a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) protocol, a code-division multiple access (CDMA) network protocol, a Push-to-Talk (PTT) protocol, a PTT over Cellular (POC) protocol, a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) protocol, a 3 GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) protocol, a fifth generation (5G) protocol, a New Radio (NR) protocol, and the like. [0040] In this embodiment, the UEs 401 and 402 may further directly exchange communication data via a ProSe interface 405. The ProSe interface 405 may alternatively be referred to as a sidelink interface comprising one or more logical channels, including but not limited to a Physical Sidelink Control Channel (PSCCH), a Physical Sidelink Shared Channel (PS SCH), a Physical Sidelink Discovery Channel (PSDCH), and a Physical Sidelink

Broadcast Channel (PSBCH).

[0041] The UE 402 is shown to be configured to access an access point (AP) 406 via connection 407. The connection 407 can comprise a local wireless connection, such as a connection consistent with any IEEE 802.11 protocol, wherein the AP 406 would comprise a wireless fidelity (WiFi®) router. In this example, the AP 406 is shown to be connected to the Internet without connecting to the core network of the wireless system (described in further detail below).

[0042] The RAN 410 can include one or more access nodes that enable the connections 403 and 404. These access nodes (ANs) can be referred to as base stations (BSs), NodeBs, evolved NodeBs (eNBs), next Generation NodeBs (gNB), RAN nodes, and so forth, and can comprise ground stations (e.g., terrestrial access points) or satellite stations providing coverage within a geographic area (e.g., a cell). The RAN 410 may include one or more RAN nodes for providing macrocells, e.g., macro RAN node 411, and one or more RAN nodes for providing femtocells or picocells (e.g., cells having smaller coverage areas, smaller user capacity, or higher bandwidth compared to macrocells), e.g., low power (LP) RAN node 412.

[0043] Any of the RAN nodes 411 and 412 can terminate the air interface protocol and can be the first point of contact for the UEs 401 and 402. In some embodiments, any of the RAN nodes 411 and 412 can fulfill various logical functions for the RAN 410 including, but not limited to, radio network controller (RNC) functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamic radio resource management and data packet scheduling, and mobility management.

[0044] In accordance with some embodiments, the UEs 401 and 402 can be configured to communicate using Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) communication signals with each other or with any of the RAN nodes 411 and 412 over a multicarrier communication channel in accordance various communication techniques, such as, but not limited to, an Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) communication technique (e.g., for downlink communications) or a Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) communication technique (e.g., for uplink and ProSe or sidelink communications), although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. The OFDM signals can comprise a plurality of orthogonal subcarriers.

[0045] In some embodiments, a downlink resource grid can be used for downlink

transmissions from any of the RAN nodes 411 and 412 to the UEs 401 and 402, while uplink transmissions can utilize similar techniques. The grid can be a time-frequency grid, called a resource grid or time-frequency resource grid, which is the physical resource in the downlink in each slot. Such a time-frequency plane representation is a common practice for OFDM systems, which makes it intuitive for radio resource allocation. Each column and each row of the resource grid corresponds to one OFDM symbol and one OFDM subcarrier, respectively. The duration of the resource grid in the time domain corresponds to one slot in a radio frame. The smallest time-frequency unit in a resource grid is denoted as a resource element. Each resource grid comprises a number of resource blocks, which describe the mapping of certain physical channels to resource elements. Each resource block comprises a collection of resource elements; in the frequency domain, this may represent the smallest quantity of resources that currently can be allocated. There are several different physical downlink channels that are conveyed using such resource blocks.

[0046] The physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) may carry user data and higher-layer signaling to the UEs 401 and 402. The physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) may carry information about the transport format and resource allocations related to the PDSCH channel, among other things. It may also inform the UEs 401 and 402 about the transport format, resource allocation, and H-ARQ (Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request) information related to the uplink shared channel. Typically, downlink scheduling (assigning control and shared channel resource blocks to the UE 402 within a cell) may be performed at any of the RAN nodes 411 and 412 based on channel quality information fed back from any of the UEs 401 and 402. The downlink resource assignment information may be sent on the PDCCH used for (e.g., assigned to) each of the UEs 401 and 402.

[0047] The PDCCH may use control channel elements (CCEs) to convey the control information. Before being mapped to resource elements, the PDCCH complex-valued symbols may first be organized into quadruplets, which may then be permuted using a sub- block interleaver for rate matching. Each PDCCH may be transmitted using one or more of these CCEs, where each CCE may correspond to nine sets of four physical resource elements known as resource element groups (REGs). Four Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) symbols may be mapped to each REG. The PDCCH can be transmitted using one or more CCEs, depending on the size of the downlink control information (DCI) and the channel condition. There can be four or more different PDCCH formats defined in LTE with different numbers of CCEs (e.g., aggregation level, L=l, 2, 4, or 8).

[0048] Some embodiments may use concepts for resource allocation for control channel information that are an extension of the above-described concepts. For example, some embodiments may utilize an enhanced physical downlink control channel (EPDCCH) that uses PDSCH resources for control information transmission. The EPDCCH may be transmitted using one or more enhanced the control channel elements (ECCEs). Similar to above, each ECCE may correspond to nine sets of four physical resource elements known as enhanced resource element groups (EREGs). An ECCE may have other numbers of EREGs in some situations.

[0049] The RAN 410 is shown to be communicatively coupled to a core network (CN) 420 — via an SI interface 413. In embodiments, the CN 420 may be an evolved packet core (EPC) network, a NextGen Packet Core (NPC) network, or some other type of CN. In this embodiment the SI interface 413 is split into two parts: the Sl-U interface 414, which carries traffic data between the RAN nodes 411 and 412 and a serving gateway (S-GW) 422, and an SI -mobility management entity (MME) interface 415, which is a signaling interface between the RAN nodes 411 and 412 and MMEs 421.

[0050] In this embodiment, the CN 420 comprises the MMEs 421, the S-GW 422, a Packet Data Network (PDN) Gateway (P-GW) 423, and a home subscriber server (HSS) 424. The MMEs 421 may be similar in function to the control plane of legacy Serving General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) Support Nodes (SGSN). The MMEs 421 may manage mobility aspects in access such as gateway selection and tracking area list management. The HSS 424 may comprise a database for network users, including subscription-related information to support the network entities' handling of communication sessions. The CN 420 may comprise one or several HSSs 424, depending on the number of mobile subscribers, on the capacity of the equipment, on the organization of the network, etc. For example, the HSS 424 can provide support for routing/roaming, authentication, authorization,

naming/addressing resolution, location dependencies, etc.

[0051] The S-GW 422 may terminate the SI interface 413 towards the RAN 410, and routes data packets between the RAN 410 and the CN 420. In addition, the S-GW 422 may be a local mobility anchor point for inter-RAN node handovers and also may provide an anchor for inter-3GPP mobility. Other responsibilities may include lawful intercept, charging, and some policy enforcement. [0052] The P-GW 423 may terminate an SGi interface toward a PDN. The P-GW 423 may route data packets between the CN 420 (e.g., an EPC network) and external networks such as a network including the application server 430 (alternatively referred to as application function (AF)) via an Internet Protocol (IP) interface 425. Generally, an application server 430 may be an element offering applications that use IP bearer resources with the core network (e.g., UMTS Packet Services (PS) domain, LTE PS data services, etc.). In this embodiment, the P-GW 423 is shown to be communicatively coupled to an application server 430 via an IP communications interface 425. The application server 430 can also be configured to support one or more communication services (e.g., Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) sessions, PTT sessions, group communication sessions, social networking services, etc.) for the UEs 401 and 402 via the CN 420.

[0053] The P-GW 423 may further be a node for policy enforcement and charging data collection. A Policy and Charging Enforcement Function (PCRF) 426 is the policy and charging control element of the CN 420. In a non-roaming scenario, there may be a single PCRF in the Home Public Land Mobile Network (HPLMN) associated with a UE's Internet Protocol Connectivity Access Network (IP-CAN) session. In a roaming scenario with local breakout of traffic, there may be two PCRFs associated with a UE's IP-CAN session: a Home PCRF (H-PCRF) within a HPLMN and a Visited PCRF (V-PCRF) within a Visited Public Land Mobile Network (VPLMN). The PCRF 426 may be communicatively coupled to the application server 430 via the P-GW 423. The application server 430 may signal the PCRF 426 to indicate a new service flow and select the appropriate Quality of Service (QoS) and charging parameters. The PCRF 426 may provision this rule into a Policy and Charging Enforcement Function (PCEF) (not shown) with the appropriate traffic flow template (TFT) and QoS class of identifier (QCI), which commences the QoS and charging as specified by the application server 430.

[0054] FIG. 5 illustrates example components of a device 500 in accordance with some embodiments. In some embodiments, the device 500 may include application circuitry 502, baseband circuitry 504, Radio Frequency (RF) circuitry 506, front-end module (FEM) circuitry 508, one or more antennas 510, and power management circuitry (PMC) 512 coupled together at least as shown. The components of the illustrated device 500 may be included in a UE or a RAN node. In some embodiments, the device 500 may include fewer elements (e.g., a RAN node may not utilize application circuitry 502, and instead include a processor/controller to process IP data received from an EPC). In some embodiments, the device 500 may include additional elements such as, for example, memory/storage, display, camera, sensor, or input/output (I/O) interface. In other embodiments, the components described below may be included in more than one device (e.g., said circuitries may be separately included in more than one device for Cloud-RAN (C-RAN) implementations).

[0055] The application circuitry 502 may include one or more application processors. For example, the application circuitry 502 may include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more single-core or multi-core processors. The processor(s) may include any combination of general -purpose processors and dedicated processors (e.g., graphics processors, application processors, etc.). The processors may be coupled with or may include

memory/storage and may be configured to execute instructions stored in the memory/storage to enable various applications or operating systems to run on the device 500. In some embodiments, processors of application circuitry 502 may process IP data packets received from an EPC.

[0056] The baseband circuitry 504 may include circuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more single-core or multi-core processors. The baseband circuitry 504 may include one or more baseband processors or control logic to process baseband signals received from a receive signal path of the RF circuitry 506 and to generate baseband signals for a transmit signal path of the RF circuitry 506. Baseband processing circuity 504 may interface with the application circuitry 502 for generation and processing of the baseband signals and for controlling operations of the RF circuitry 506. For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 504 may include a third generation (3G) baseband processor 504A, a fourth generation (4G) baseband processor 504B, a fifth generation (5G) baseband processor 504C, or other baseband processor(s) 504D for other existing generations, generations in development or to be developed in the future (e.g., second generation (2G), sixth generation (6G), etc.). The baseband circuitry 504 (e.g., one or more of baseband processors 504A-D) may handle various radio control functions that enable communication with one or more radio networks via the RF circuitry 506. In other embodiments, some or all of the functionality of baseband processors 504A-D may be included in modules stored in the memory 504G and executed via a Central Processing Unit (CPU) 504E. The radio control functions may include, but are not limited to, signal modulation/demodulation,

encoding/decoding, radio frequency shifting, etc. In some embodiments,

modulation/demodulation circuitry of the baseband circuitry 504 may include Fast-Fourier Transform (FFT), precoding, or constellation mapping/demapping functionality. In some embodiments, encoding/decoding circuitry of the baseband circuitry 504 may include convolution, tail-biting convolution, turbo, Viterbi, or Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) encoder/decoder functionality. Embodiments of modulation/demodulation and encoder/decoder functionality are not limited to these examples and may include other suitable functionality in other embodiments.

[0057] In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 504 may include one or more audio digital signal processor(s) (DSP) 504F. The audio DSP(s) 504F may be include elements for compression/decompression and echo cancellation and may include other suitable processing elements in other embodiments. Components of the baseband circuitry may be suitably combined in a single chip, a single chipset, or disposed on a same circuit board in some embodiments. In some embodiments, some or all of the constituent components of the baseband circuitry 504 and the application circuitry 502 may be implemented together such as, for example, on a system on a chip (SOC).

[0058] In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 504 may provide for

communication compatible with one or more radio technologies. For example, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 504 may support communication with an evolved universal terrestrial radio access network (EUTRAN) or other wireless metropolitan area networks (WMAN), a wireless local area network (WLAN), or a wireless personal area network (WPAN). Embodiments in which the baseband circuitry 504 is configured to support radio communications of more than one wireless protocol may be referred to as multi-mode baseband circuitry.

[0059] RF circuitry 506 may enable communication with wireless networks

using modulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. In various embodiments, the RF circuitry 506 may include switches, filters, amplifiers, etc. to facilitate the communication with the wireless network. The RF circuitry 506 may include a receive signal path which may include circuitry to down-convert RF signals received from the FEM circuitry 508 and provide baseband signals to the baseband circuitry 504. RF circuitry 506 may also include a transmit signal path which may include circuitry to up-convert baseband signals provided by the baseband circuitry 504 and provide RF output signals to the FEM circuitry 508 for transmission.

[0060] In some embodiments, the receive signal path of the RF circuitry 506 may include mixer circuitry 506A, amplifier circuitry 506B and filter circuitry 506C. In some embodiments, the transmit signal path of the RF circuitry 506 may include filter circuitry 506C and mixer circuitry 506 A. RF circuitry 506 may also include synthesizer circuitry 506D for synthesizing a frequency for use by the mixer circuitry 506 A of the receive signal path and the transmit signal path. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 506A of the receive signal path may be configured to down-convert RF signals received from the FEM circuitry 508 based on the synthesized frequency provided by synthesizer circuitry 506D. The amplifier circuitry 506B may be configured to amplify the down-converted signals and the filter circuitry 506C may be a low-pass filter (LPF) or band-pass filter (BPF) configured to remove unwanted signals from the down-converted signals to generate output baseband signals. Output baseband signals may be provided to the baseband circuitry 504 for further processing. In some embodiments, the output baseband signals may be zero-frequency baseband signals, although this is not a requirement. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 506A of the receive signal path may comprise passive mixers, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

[0061] In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 506A of the transmit signal path may be configured to up-convert input baseband signals based on the synthesized frequency provided by the synthesizer circuitry 506D to generate RF output signals for the FEM circuitry 508. The baseband signals may be provided by the baseband circuitry 504 and may be filtered by the filter circuitry 506C.

[0062] In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 506A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 506A of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for quadrature downconversion and upconversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 506A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 506A of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and may be arranged for image rejection (e.g., Hartley image rejection). In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 506A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 506A may be arranged for direct downconversion and direct upconversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 506A of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry 506A of the transmit signal path may be configured for super-heterodyne operation.

[0063] In some embodiments, the output baseband signals and the input baseband signals may be analog baseband signals, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. In some alternate embodiments, the output baseband signals and the input baseband signals may be digital baseband signals. In these alternate embodiments, the RF circuitry 506 may include analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuitry and the baseband circuitry 504 may include a digital baseband interface to communicate with the RF circuitry 506. [0064] In some dual-mode embodiments, a separate radio IC circuitry may be provided for processing signals for each spectrum, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

[0065] In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry 506D may be a fractional-N synthesizer or a fractional N/N+l synthesizer, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect as other types of frequency synthesizers may be suitable. For example, synthesizer circuitry 506D may be a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequency multiplier, or a synthesizer comprising a phase-locked loop with a frequency divider.

[0066] The synthesizer circuitry 506D may be configured to synthesize an output frequency for use by the mixer circuitry 506A of the RF circuitry 506 based on a frequency input and a divider control input. In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry 506D may be a fractional N/N+l synthesizer.

[0067] In some embodiments, frequency input may be provided by a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO), although that is not a requirement. Divider control input may be provided by either the baseband circuitry 504 or the application circuitry 502 (such as an applications processor) depending on the desired output frequency. In some embodiments, a divider control input (e.g., N) may be determined from a look-up table based on a channel indicated by the application circuitry 502.

[0068] Synthesizer circuitry 506D of the RF circuitry 506 may include a divider, a delay- locked loop (DLL), a multiplexer and a phase accumulator. In some embodiments, the divider may be a dual modulus divider (DMD) and the phase accumulator may be a digital phase accumulator (DP A). In some embodiments, the DMD may be configured to divide the input signal by either N or N+l (e.g., based on a carry out) to provide a fractional division ratio. In some example embodiments, the DLL may include a set of cascaded, tunable, delay elements, a phase detector, a charge pump and a D-type flip-flop. In these embodiments, the delay elements may be configured to break a VCO period up into Nd equal packets of phase, where Nd is the number of delay elements in the delay line. In this way, the DLL provides negative feedback to help ensure that the total delay through the delay line is one VCO cycle.

[0069] In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry 506D may be configured to generate a carrier frequency as the output frequency, while in other embodiments, the output frequency may be a multiple of the carrier frequency (e.g., twice the carrier frequency, four times the carrier frequency) and used in conjunction with quadrature generator and divider circuitry to generate multiple signals at the carrier frequency with multiple different phases with respect to each other. In some embodiments, the output frequency may be a LO frequency (fLO). In some embodiments, the RF circuitry 506 may include an IQ/polar converter.

[0070] FEM circuitry 508 may include a receive signal path which may include circuitry configured to operate on RF signals received from one or more antennas 510, amplify the received signals and provide the amplified versions of the received signals to the RF circuitry 506 for further processing. The FEM circuitry 508 may also include a transmit signal path which may include circuitry configured to amplify signals for transmission provided by the RF circuitry 506 for transmission by one or more of the one or more antennas 510. In various embodiments, the amplification through the transmit or receive signal paths may be done solely in the RF circuitry 506, solely in the FEM circuitry 508, or in both the RF circuitry 506 and the FEM circuitry 508.

[0071] In some embodiments, the FEM circuitry 508 may include a TX/RX switch to switch between transmit mode and receive mode operation. The FEM circuitry 508 may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of the FEM circuitry 508 may include an LNA to amplify received RF signals and provide the amplified received RF signals as an output (e.g., to the RF circuitry 506). The transmit signal path of the FEM circuitry 508 may include a power amplifier (PA) to amplify input RF signals (e.g., provided by the RF circuitry 506), and one or more filters to generate RF signals for subsequent transmission (e.g., by one or more of the one or more antennas 510).

[0072] In some embodiments, the PMC 512 may manage power provided to the baseband circuitry 504. In particular, the PMC 512 may control power-source selection, voltage scaling, battery charging, or DC-to-DC conversion. The PMC 512 may often be included when the device 500 is capable of being powered by a battery, for example, when the device 500 is included in a UE. The PMC 512 may increase the power conversion efficiency while providing desirable implementation size and heat dissipation characteristics.

[0073] FIG. 5 shows the PMC 512 coupled only with the baseband circuitry 504. However, in other embodiments, the PMC 512 may be additionally or alternatively coupled with, and perform similar power management operations for, other components such as, but not limited to, the application circuitry 502, the RF circuitry 506, or the FEM circuitry 508.

[0074] In some embodiments, the PMC 512 may control, or otherwise be part of, various power saving mechanisms of the device 500. For example, if the device 500 is in an

RRC Connected state, where it is still connected to the RAN node as it expects to receive traffic shortly, then it may enter a state known as Discontinuous Reception Mode (DRX) after a period of inactivity. During this state, the device 500 may power down for brief intervals of time and thus save power.

[0075] If there is no data traffic activity for an extended period of time, then the device 500 may transition off to an RRC Idle state, where it disconnects from the network and does not perform operations such as channel quality feedback, handover, etc. The device 500 goes into a very low power state and it performs paging where again it periodically wakes up to listen to the network and then powers down again. The device 500 may not receive data in this state, and in order to receive data, it transitions back to an RRC Connected state.

[0076] An additional power saving mode may allow a device to be unavailable to the network for periods longer than a paging interval (ranging from seconds to a few hours). During this time, the device is totally unreachable to the network and may power down completely. Any data sent during this time incurs a large delay and it is assumed the delay is acceptable.

[0077] Processors of the application circuitry 502 and processors of the baseband circuitry 504 may be used to execute elements of one or more instances of a protocol stack. For example, processors of the baseband circuitry 504, alone or in combination, may be used to execute Layer 3, Layer 2, or Layer 1 functionality, while processors of the application circuitry 502 may utilize data (e.g., packet data) received from these layers and further execute Layer 4 functionality (e.g., transmission communication protocol (TCP) and user datagram protocol (UDP) layers). As referred to herein, Layer 3 may comprise a radio resource control (RRC) layer, described in further detail below. As referred to herein, Layer 2 may comprise a medium access control (MAC) layer, a radio link control (RLC) layer, and a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layer, described in further detail below. As referred to herein, Layer 1 may comprise a physical (PHY) layer of a UE/RAN node, described in further detail below.

[0078] FIG. 6 illustrates example interfaces of baseband circuitry in accordance with some embodiments. As discussed above, the baseband circuitry 504 of FIG. 5 may comprise processors 504A-504E and a memory 504G utilized by said processors. Each of the processors 504A-504E may include a memory interface, 604A-604E, respectively, to send/receive data to/from the memory 504G.

[0079] The baseband circuitry 504 may further include one or more interfaces to

communicatively couple to other circuitries/devices, such as a memory interface 612 (e.g., an interface to send/receive data to/from memory external to the baseband circuitry 504), an application circuitry interface 614 (e.g., an interface to send/receive data to/from the application circuitry 502 of FIG. 5), an RF circuitry interface 616 (e.g., an interface to send/receive data to/from RF circuitry 506 of FIG. 5), a wireless hardware connectivity interface 618 (e.g., an interface to send/receive data to/from Near Field Communication (NFC) components, Bluetooth® components (e.g., Bluetooth® Low Energy), Wi-Fi® components, and other communication components), and a power management interface 620 (e.g., an interface to send/receive power or control signals to/from the PMC 512.

[0080] FIG. 7 is an illustration of a control plane protocol stack in accordance with some embodiments. In this embodiment, a control plane 700 is shown as a communications protocol stack between the UE 401 (or alternatively, the UE 402), the RAN node 411 (or alternatively, the RAN node 412), and the MME 421.

[0081] A PHY layer 701 may transmit or receive information used by the MAC layer 702 over one or more air interfaces. The PHY layer 701 may further perform link adaptation or adaptive modulation and coding (AMC), power control, cell search (e.g., for initial synchronization and handover purposes), and other measurements used by higher layers, such as an RRC layer 705. The PHY layer 701 may still further perform error detection on the transport channels, forward error correction (FEC) coding/decoding of the transport channels, modulation/demodulation of physical channels, interleaving, rate matching, mapping onto physical channels, and Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna processing.

[0082] The MAC layer 702 may perform mapping between logical channels and transport channels, multiplexing of MAC service data units (SDUs) from one or more logical channels onto transport blocks (TB) to be delivered to PHY via transport channels, de-multiplexing MAC SDUs to one or more logical channels from transport blocks (TB) delivered from the PHY via transport channels, multiplexing MAC SDUs onto TBs, scheduling information reporting, error correction through hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ), and logical channel prioritization.

[0083] An RLC layer 703 may operate in a plurality of modes of operation, including:

Transparent Mode (TM), Unacknowledged Mode (UM), and Acknowledged Mode (AM). The RLC layer 703 may execute transfer of upper layer protocol data units (PDUs), error correction through automatic repeat request (ARQ) for AM data transfers, and concatenation, segmentation and reassembly of RLC SDUs for UM and AM data transfers. The RLC layer 703 may also execute re-segmentation of RLC data PDUs for AM data transfers, reorder RLC data PDUs for UM and AM data transfers, detect duplicate data for UM and AM data transfers, discard RLC SDUs for UM and AM data transfers, detect protocol errors for AM data transfers, and perform RLC re-establishment. [0084] A PDCP layer 704 may execute header compression and decompression of IP data, maintain PDCP Sequence Numbers (SNs), perform in-sequence delivery of upper layer PDUs at re-establishment of lower layers, eliminate duplicates of lower layer SDUs at re- establishment of lower layers for radio bearers mapped on RLC AM, cipher and decipher control plane data, perform integrity protection and integrity verification of control plane data, control timer-based discard of data, and perform security operations (e.g., ciphering, deciphering, integrity protection, integrity verification, etc.).

[0085] The main services and functions of the RRC layer 705 may include broadcast of system information (e.g., included in Master Information Blocks (MIBs) or System

Information Blocks (SIBs) related to the non-access stratum (NAS)), broadcast of system information related to the access stratum (AS), paging, establishment, maintenance and release of an RRC connection between the UE and E-UTRAN (e.g., RRC connection paging, RRC connection establishment, RRC connection modification, and RRC connection release), establishment, configuration, maintenance and release of point-to-point radio bearers, security functions including key management, inter radio access technology (RAT) mobility, and measurement configuration for UE measurement reporting. Said MIBs and SIBs may comprise one or more information elements (IEs), which may each comprise individual data fields or data structures.

[0086] The UE 401 and the RAN node 411 may utilize a Uu interface (e.g., an LTE-Uu interface) to exchange control plane data via a protocol stack comprising the PHY layer 701, the MAC layer 702, the RLC layer 703, the PDCP layer 704, and the RRC layer 705.

[0087] In the embodiment shown, the non-access stratum (NAS) protocols 706 form the highest stratum of the control plane between the UE 401 and the MME 421. The NAS protocols 706 support the mobility of the UE 401 and the session management procedures to establish and maintain IP connectivity between the UE 401 and the P-GW 423.

[0088] The SI Application Protocol (Sl-AP) layer 715 may support the functions of the SI interface and comprise Elementary Procedures (EPs). An EP is a unit of interaction between the RAN node 411 and the CN 420. The Sl-AP layer services may comprise two groups: UE-associated services and non UE-associated services. These services perform functions including, but not limited to: E-UTRAN Radio Access Bearer (E-RAB) management, UE capability indication, mobility, NAS signaling transport, RAN Information Management (RIM), and configuration transfer.

[0089] The Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) layer (alternatively referred to as the stream control transmission protocol/internet protocol (SCTP/IP) layer) 714 may ensure reliable delivery of signaling messages between the RAN node 411 and the MME 421 based, in part, on the IP protocol, supported by an IP layer 713. An L2 layer 712 and an LI layer 711 may refer to communication links (e.g., wired or wireless) used by the RAN node and the MME to exchange information.

[0090] The RAN node 411 and the MME 421 may utilize an SI -MME interface to exchange control plane data via a protocol stack comprising the LI layer 711, the L2 layer 712, the IP layer 713, the SCTP layer 714, and the Sl-AP layer 715.

[0091] FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating components, according to some example embodiments, able to read instructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. Specifically, FIG. 8 shows a diagrammatic representation of hardware resources 800 including one or more processors (or processor cores) 810, one or more memory/storage devices 820, and one or more communication resources 830, each of which may be communicatively coupled via a bus 840. For embodiments where node virtualization (e.g., NFV) is utilized, a hypervisor 802 may be executed to provide an execution environment for one or more network slices/sub-slices to utilize the hardware resources 800.

[0092] The processors 810 (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU), a reduced instruction set computing (RISC) processor, a complex instruction set computing (CISC) processor, a graphics processing unit (GPU), a digital signal processor (DSP) such as a baseband processor, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a radio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), another processor, or any suitable combination thereof) may include, for example, a processor 812 and a processor 814.

[0093] The memory/storage devices 820 may include main memory, disk storage, or any suitable combination thereof. The memory/storage devices 820 may include, but are not limited to any type of volatile or non-volatile memory such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random-access memory (SRAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), Flash memory, solid-state storage, etc.

[0094] The communication resources 830 may include interconnection or network interface components or other suitable devices to communicate with one or more peripheral devices 804 or one or more databases 806 via a network 808. For example, the communication resources 830 may include wired communication components (e.g., for coupling via a Universal Serial Bus (USB)), cellular communication components, NFC components, Bluetooth® components (e.g., Bluetooth® Low Energy), Wi-Fi® components, and other communication components.

[0095] Instructions 850 may comprise software, a program, an application, an applet, an app, or other executable code for causing at least any of the processors 810 to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. The instructions 850 may reside, completely or partially, within at least one of the processors 810 (e.g., within the processor's cache memory), the memory/storage devices 820, or any suitable combination thereof.

Furthermore, any portion of the instructions 850 may be transferred to the hardware resources 800 from any combination of the peripheral devices 804 or the databases 806. Accordingly, the memory of processors 810, the memory/storage devices 820, the peripheral devices 804, and the databases 806 are examples of computer-readable and machine-readable media. Examples

[0096] Example 1 is an apparatus for a user equipment (UE), comprising a memory and a processor. The memory configured to store a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) buffer having a memory size. The processor coupled to the HARQ buffer and cellular interface, the processor configured to: generate a message indicating the memory size of the HARQ buffer; provide the message to the cellular interface for transmission to the RAN node; generate a HARQ buffer status report describing a loading of the HARQ buffer; and provide the HARQ buffer status report to a cellular interface for transmission to the radio access network (RAN) node.

[0097] Example 2 is the apparatus of Example 1, further comprising the cellular interface configured to process and generate messages for the RAN node.

[0098] Example 3 is the apparatus of Example 1, wherein the message is a UE capability message.

[0099] Example 4 is the apparatus of Example 1, wherein the message comprises a UE category indicating HARQ memory size.

[0100] Example 5 is the apparatus of Example 1, wherein the message indicates a minimum memory size that is less than the memory size.

[0101] Example 6 is the apparatus of any of Examples 1-5, wherein the processor is further configured to process a HARQ buffer status request from the RAN node.

[0102] Example 7 is the apparatus of any of Examples 1-5, wherein the processor is further configured to determine that an event trigger for generating the HARQ buffer status report has occurred. [0103] Example 8 is the system of any of Examples 1-5, wherein the processor is a baseband processor.

[0104] Example 9 is an apparatus for a base station, comprising a memory, a cellular interface, and a processor. The memory interface configured to store and access a user equipment (UE) hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) buffer indicator, the indicator indicating a memory size of the UE HARQ buffer. The cellular interface configured to process and generate messages for the UE. The processor coupled to the HARQ buffer and cellular interface, the processor configured to: process a message from the UE indicating the memory size of the UE HARQ buffer; process a HARQ buffer status report describing a loading of the UE HARQ buffer; and determine whether to use incremental redundancy versions (IRV) for retransmission based at least in part on the HARQ buffer status report.

[0105] Example 10 is the apparatus of Example 9, wherein the base station is an evolved Node B (eNB) or a new radio Node B (gNB).

[0106] Example 11 is the apparatus of Example 9, further comprising to generate a request to the UE for a HARQ buffer status report.

[0107] Example 12 is the apparatus of Example 9, wherein the request is a radio resource control (RRC) request, media access control (MAC) request or physical layer control signaling request.

[0108] Example 13 is the apparatus of Example 11, wherein the request further comprises a periodic configuration for periodic HARQ buffer status reports.

[0109] Example 14 is the apparatus of Example 11, wherein the request further comprises a request for a single HARQ buffer status report.

[0110] Example 15 is the apparatus of Example 9, further comprising to generate a request for the cellular interface for transmission to the UE that includes requesting an indicator that describes the memory size of the UE HARQ buffer.

[0111] Example 16 is the apparatus of any of Examples 9-15, wherein the message comprises a UE capability information element indicating the memory size of the UE HARQ buffer.

[0112] Example 17 is the apparatus of any of Examples 9-15, wherein the message indicates a UE category that implies a minimum memory size of the HARQ buffer.

[0113] Example 18 is the apparatus of any of Examples 9-15, wherein the processor is a baseband processor.

[0114] Example 19 is a method of managing a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) buffer, the method comprising: generate a message indicating the memory size of a HARQ buffer using a UE capability information element or a UE category information element; provide the message to the cellular interface for transmission to the RAN node; generate a HARQ buffer status report describing a loading of the HARQ buffer; and provide the HARQ buffer status report for transmission to the RAN node.

[0115] Example 20 is the method of Example 19, wherein a HARQ buffer status report timing is network controlled.

[0116] Example 21 is the method of Example 20, wherein the HARQ buffer status report timing is based on an event trigger provided by the network.

[0117] Example 22 is the method of Example 19, wherein a HARQ buffer status report timing is UE controlled.

[0118] Example 23 is the method of Example 19, wherein the method further comprises determining whether to use incremental redundancy versions (IRV) based at least in part on the buffer status report.

[0119] Example 24 is an apparatus comprising means to perform a method as exemplified in any of Examples 19-23.

[0120] Example 25 is a machine readable medium including code, when executed, to cause a machine to perform the method of any one of Examples 19-23.

[0121] Example 26 is a computer program product comprising a computer-readable storage medium that stores instructions for execution by a processor to perform operations of a user equipment (UE), the operations, when executed by the processor, to perform a method, the method comprising: generate a message indicating the memory size of a HARQ buffer using a UE capability information element or a UE category information element; provide the message to the cellular interface for transmission to the RAN node; generate a HARQ buffer status report describing a loading of the HARQ buffer; and provide the HARQ buffer status report for transmission to the RAN node.

[0122] Example 27 is an apparatus for a user equipment (UE), the apparatus comprising: means for generating a message indicating the memory size of a HARQ buffer using a UE capability information element or a UE category information element; means for providing the message to the cellular interface for transmission to the RAN node; means for generating a HARQ buffer status report describing a loading of the HARQ buffer; and means for providing the HARQ buffer status report for transmission to the RAN node.

Additional Examples

[0123] Additional Example 1 may include a method of storing received soft channel bits in case of decoding failure, the method comprising: signaling of the user equipment (UE) capability regarding the size of the buffer for storing the received soft channel bits; and reporting from the UE to the generation Node-B (gNB) information regarding actual usage of the buffer.

[0124] Additional Example 2 may include the method of Additional Example 1 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the usage of the buffer is defined in the number of soft channel bits.

[0125] Additional Example 3 may include the method of Additional Example 1 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the usage of the buffer is defined in the relative number of used amount of the buffer occupied by the received soft channel bits relative to the total buffer size.

[0126] Additional Example 4 may include the method of Additional Example 1 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the usage of the buffer is defined in the relative number of used amount of the buffer not occupied by the received soft channel bits relative to the total buffer size.

[0127] Additional Example 5 may include the method of Additional Example 1 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the reporting of the actual buffer usage for storing the received soft channel bits is performed periodically in accordance with the configuration from the gNB.

[0128] Additional Example 6 may include the method of Additional Example 1 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the reporting of the actual buffer usage for storing the received soft channel bits is performed periodically according to the

predetermined value.

[0129] Additional Example 7 may include the method of Additional Example 1 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the reporting of the actual buffer usage for sorting the received soft channel bits is performed aperiodically.

[0130] Additional Example 8 may include the method of Additional Example 7 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the aperiodic reporting is performed based on the control command from the gNB.

[0131] Additional Example 9 may include the method of Additional Example 7 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the aperiodic reporting is determined when a predetermined condition is satisfied.

[0132] Additional Example 10 may include the method of Additional Example 9 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the reporting condition is when the buffer usage amount is below the threshold. [0133] Additional Example 11 may include the method of Additional Example 10 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the reporting condition is when the buffer usage amount is above the threshold.

[0134] Additional Example 12 may include the method of Additional Examples 9-10 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the threshold is configured by the g B using high-layer signaling such as RRC or MAC.

[0135] Additional Example 13 may include the method of Additional Example 1 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the storage of the receive soft channel bits is determined by the UE implementation.

[0136] Additional Example 14 may include an apparatus to store received soft channel bits in case of decoding failure, the apparatus comprising baseband and/or radio frequency (RF) circuitry to: signal the user equipment (UE) capability regarding the size of the buffer for storing the received soft channel bits; and report from the UE to the generation Node-B (gNB) information regarding actual usage of the buffer.

[0137] Additional Example 15 may include the apparatus of Additional Example 14 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the usage of the buffer is defined in the number of soft channel bits.

[0138] Additional Example 16 may include the apparatus of Additional Example 14 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the usage of the buffer is defined in the relative number of used amount of the buffer occupied by the received soft channel bits relative to the total buffer size.

[0139] Additional Example 17 may include the apparatus of Additional Example 14 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the usage of the buffer is defined in the relative number of used amount of the buffer not occupied by the received soft channel bits relative to the total buffer size.

[0140] Additional Example 18 may include the apparatus of Additional Example 14 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the reporting of the actual buffer usage for storing the received soft channel bits is performed periodically in accordance with the configuration from the gNB.

[0141] Additional Example 19 may include the apparatus of Additional Example 14 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the reporting of the actual buffer usage for storing the received soft channel bits is performed periodically according to the predetermined value. [0142] Additional Example 20 may include the apparatus of Additional Example 14 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the reporting of the actual buffer usage for sorting the received soft channel bits is performed aperiodically.

[0143] Additional Example 21 may include the apparatus of Additional Example 20 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the aperiodic reporting is performed based on the control command from the gNB.

[0144] Additional Example 22 may include the apparatus of Additional Example 20 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the aperiodic reporting is determined when a predetermined condition is satisfied.

[0145] Additional Example 23 may include the apparatus of Additional Example 22 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the reporting condition is when the buffer usage amount is below the threshold.

[0146] Additional Example 24 may include the apparatus of Additional Example 23 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the reporting condition is when the buffer usage amount is above the threshold.

[0147] Additional Example 25 may include the apparatus of Additional Examples 22-23 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the threshold is configured by the gNB using high-layer signaling such as RRC or MAC.

[0148] Additional Example 26 may include the apparatus of Additional Example 14 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the storage of the receive soft channel bits is determined by the UE implementation.

[0149] Additional Example 27 may include one or more non-transitory computer- readable media comprising instructions to, upon execution of the instructions by one or more processors of an electronic device, cause the electronic device to store received soft channel bits in case of decoding failure, wherein the instructions are to: signal the user equipment (UE) capability regarding the size of the buffer for storing the received soft channel bits; and report from the UE to the generation Node-B (gNB) information regarding actual usage of the buffer.

[0150] Additional Example 28 may include the one or more non-transitory computer- readable media of Additional Example 27 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the usage of the buffer is defined in the number of soft channel bits.

[0151] Additional Example 29 may include the one or more non-transitory computer- readable media of Additional Example 27 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the usage of the buffer is defined in the relative number of used amount of the buffer occupied by the received soft channel bits relative to the total buffer size.

[0152] Additional Example 30 may include the one or more non-transitory computer- readable media of Additional Example 27 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the usage of the buffer is defined in the relative number of used amount of the buffer not occupied by the received soft channel bits relative to the total buffer size.

[0153] Additional Example 31 may include the one or more non-transitory computer- readable media of Additional Example 27 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the reporting of the actual buffer usage for storing the received soft channel bits is performed periodically in accordance with the configuration from the gNB.

[0154] Additional Example 32 may include the one or more non-transitory computer- readable media of Additional Example 27 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the reporting of the actual buffer usage for storing the received soft channel bits is performed periodically according to the predetermined value.

[0155] Additional Example 33 may include the one or more non-transitory computer- readable media of Additional Example 27 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the reporting of the actual buffer usage for sorting the received soft channel bits is performed aperiodically.

[0156] Additional Example 34 may include the one or more non-transitory computer- readable media of Additional Example 33 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the aperiodic reporting is performed based on the control command from the g B.

[0157] Additional Example 35 may include the one or more non-transitory computer- readable media of Additional Example 33 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the aperiodic reporting is determined when a predetermined condition is satisfied.

[0158] Additional Example 36 may include the one or more non-transitory computer- readable media of Additional Example 35 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the reporting condition is when the buffer usage amount is below the threshold.

[0159] Additional Example 37 may include the one or more non-transitory computer- readable media of Additional Example 36 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the reporting condition is when the buffer usage amount is above the threshold.

[0160] Additional Example 38 may include the one or more non-transitory computer- readable media of Additional Examples 35-36 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the threshold is configured by the gNB using high-layer signaling such as RRC or MAC. [0161] Additional Example 39 may include the one or more non-transitory computer- readable media of Additional Example 27 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the storage of the receive soft channel bits is determined by the UE implementation.

[0162] Additional Example 40 may include an apparatus to store received soft channel bits in case of decoding failure, the apparatus comprising: means to signal the user equipment (UE) capability regarding the size of the buffer for storing the received soft channel bits; and means to report from the UE to the generation Node-B (g B) information regarding actual usage of the buffer.

[0163] Additional Example 41 may include the apparatus of Additional Example 40 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the usage of the buffer is defined in the number of soft channel bits.

[0164] Additional Example 42 may include the apparatus of Additional Example 40 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the usage of the buffer is defined in the relative number of used amount of the buffer occupied by the received soft channel bits relative to the total buffer size.

[0165] Additional Example 43 may include the apparatus of Additional Example 40 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the usage of the buffer is defined in the relative number of used amount of the buffer not occupied by the received soft channel bits relative to the total buffer size.

[0166] Additional Example 44 may include the apparatus of Additional Example 40 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the reporting of the actual buffer usage for storing the received soft channel bits is performed periodically in accordance with the configuration from the gNB.

[0167] Additional Example 45 may include the apparatus of Additional Example 40 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the reporting of the actual buffer usage for storing the received soft channel bits is performed periodically according to the predetermined value.

[0168] Additional Example 46 may include the apparatus of Additional Example 40 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the reporting of the actual buffer usage for sorting the received soft channel bits is performed aperiodically.

[0169] Additional Example 47 may include the apparatus of Additional Example 46 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the aperiodic reporting is performed based on the control command from the gNB. [0170] Additional Example 48 may include the apparatus of Additional Example 46 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the aperiodic reporting is determined when a predetermined condition is satisfied.

[0171] Additional Example 49 may include the apparatus of Additional Example 48 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the reporting condition is when the buffer usage amount is below the threshold.

[0172] Additional Example 50 may include the apparatus of Additional Example 49 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the reporting condition is when the buffer usage amount is above the threshold.

[0173] Additional Example 51 may include the apparatus of Additional Examples 48-49 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the threshold is configured by the g B using high-layer signaling such as RRC or MAC.

[0174] Additional Example 52 may include the apparatus of Additional Example 40 and/or some other Additional Example herein, wherein the storage of the receive soft channel bits is determined by the UE implementation.

[0175] Additional Example 53 may include an apparatus comprising means to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of Additional Examples 1- 52, or any other method or process described herein.

[0176] Additional Example 54 may include one or more non-transitory computer- readable media comprising instructions to cause an electronic device, upon execution of the instructions by one or more processors of the electronic device, to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of Additional Examples 1-52, or any other method or process described herein.

[0177] Additional Example 55 may include an apparatus comprising logic, modules, and/or circuitry to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of

Additional Examples 1-52, or any other method or process described herein.

[0178] Additional Example 56 may include a method, technique, or process as described in or related to any of Additional Examples 1-52, or portions or parts thereof.

[0179] Additional Example 57 may include an apparatus comprising: one or more processors and one or more computer readable media comprising instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the method, techniques, or process as described in or related to any of Additional Examples 1-52, or portions thereof. [0180] Additional Example 58 may include a method of communicating in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

[0181] Additional Example 59 may include a system for providing wireless

communication as shown and described herein.

[0182] Additional Example 60 may include a device for providing wireless

communication as shown and described herein.

[0183] Embodiments and implementations of the systems and methods described herein may include various operations, which may be embodied in machine-executable instructions to be executed by a computer system. A computer system may include one or more general- purpose or special-purpose computers (or other electronic devices). The computer system may include hardware components that include specific logic for performing the operations or may include a combination of hardware, software, and/or firmware.

[0184] Computer systems and the computers in a computer system may be connected via a network. Suitable networks for configuration and/or use as described herein include one or more local area networks, wide area networks, metropolitan area networks, and/or Internet or IP networks, such as the World Wide Web, a private Internet, a secure Internet, a value-added network, a virtual private network, an extranet, an intranet, or even stand-alone machines which communicate with other machines by physical transport of media. In particular, a suitable network may be formed from parts or entireties of two or more other networks, including networks using disparate hardware and network communication technologies.

[0185] One suitable network includes a server and one or more clients; other suitable networks may contain other combinations of servers, clients, and/or peer-to-peer nodes, and a given computer system may function both as a client and as a server. Each network includes at least two computers or computer systems, such as the server and/or clients. A computer system may include a workstation, laptop computer, disconnectable mobile computer, server, mainframe, cluster, so-called "network computer" or "thin client," tablet, smart phone, personal digital assistant or other hand-held computing device, "smart" consumer electronics device or appliance, medical device, or a combination thereof.

[0186] Suitable networks may include communications or networking software, such as the software available from Novell®, Microsoft®, and other vendors, and may operate using TCP/IP, SPX, IPX, and other protocols over twisted pair, coaxial, or optical fiber cables, telephone lines, radio waves, satellites, microwave relays, modulated AC power lines, physical media transfer, and/or other data transmission "wires" known to those of skill in the art. The network may encompass smaller networks and/or be connectable to other networks through a gateway or similar mechanism.

[0187] Various techniques, or certain aspects or portions thereof, may take the form of program code (i.e., instructions) embodied in tangible media, such as floppy diskettes, CD- ROMs, hard drives, magnetic or optical cards, solid-state memory devices, a nontransitory computer-readable storage medium, or any other machine-readable storage medium wherein, when the program code is loaded into and executed by a machine, such as a computer, the machine becomes an apparatus for practicing the various techniques. In the case of program code execution on programmable computers, the computing device may include a processor, a storage medium readable by the processor (including volatile and nonvolatile memory and/or storage elements), at least one input device, and at least one output device. The volatile and nonvolatile memory and/or storage elements may be a RAM, an EPROM, a flash drive, an optical drive, a magnetic hard drive, or other medium for storing electronic data. The e B (or other base station) and UE (or other mobile station) may also include a transceiver component, a counter component, a processing component, and/or a clock component or timer component. One or more programs that may implement or utilize the various techniques described herein may use an application programming interface (API), reusable controls, and the like. Such programs may be implemented in a high-level procedural or an object-oriented programming language to communicate with a computer system. However, the program(s) may be implemented in assembly or machine language, if desired. In any case, the language may be a compiled or interpreted language, and combined with hardware implementations.

[0188] Each computer system includes one or more processors and/or memory; computer systems may also include various input devices and/or output devices. The processor may include a general purpose device, such as an Intel®, AMD®, or other "off-the-shelf microprocessor. The processor may include a special purpose processing device, such as ASIC, SoC, SiP, FPGA, PAL, PLA, FPLA, PLD, or other customized or programmable device. The memory may include static RAM, dynamic RAM, flash memory, one or more flip-flops, ROM, CD-ROM, DVD, disk, tape, or magnetic, optical, or other computer storage medium. The input device(s) may include a keyboard, mouse, touch screen, light pen, tablet, microphone, sensor, or other hardware with accompanying firmware and/or software. The output device(s) may include a monitor or other display, printer, speech or text synthesizer, switch, signal line, or other hardware with accompanying firmware and/or software. [0189] It should be understood that many of the functional units described in this specification may be implemented as one or more components, which is a term used to more particularly emphasize their implementation independence. For example, a component may be implemented as a hardware circuit comprising custom very large scale integration (VLSI) circuits or gate arrays, or off-the-shelf semiconductors such as logic chips, transistors, or other discrete components. A component may also be implemented in programmable hardware devices such as field programmable gate arrays, programmable array logic, programmable logic devices, or the like.

[0190] Components may also be implemented in software for execution by various types of processors. An identified component of executable code may, for instance, comprise one or more physical or logical blocks of computer instructions, which may, for instance, be organized as an object, a procedure, or a function. Nevertheless, the executables of an identified component need not be physically located together, but may comprise disparate instructions stored in different locations that, when joined logically together, comprise the component and achieve the stated purpose for the component.

[0191] Indeed, a component of executable code may be a single instruction, or many instructions, and may even be distributed over several different code segments, among different programs, and across several memory devices. Similarly, operational data may be identified and illustrated herein within components, and may be embodied in any suitable form and organized within any suitable type of data structure. The operational data may be collected as a single data set, or may be distributed over different locations including over different storage devices, and may exist, at least partially, merely as electronic signals on a system or network. The components may be passive or active, including agents operable to perform desired functions.

[0192] Several aspects of the embodiments described will be illustrated as software modules or components. As used herein, a software module or component may include any type of computer instruction or computer-executable code located within a memory device. A software module may, for instance, include one or more physical or logical blocks of computer instructions, which may be organized as a routine, program, object, component, data structure, etc., that perform one or more tasks or implement particular data types. It is appreciated that a software module may be implemented in hardware and/or firmware instead of or in addition to software. One or more of the functional modules described herein may be separated into sub-modules and/or combined into a single or smaller number of modules. [0193] In certain embodiments, a particular software module may include disparate instructions stored in different locations of a memory device, different memory devices, or different computers, which together implement the described functionality of the module. Indeed, a module may include a single instruction or many instructions, and may be distributed over several different code segments, among different programs, and across several memory devices. Some embodiments may be practiced in a distributed computing environment where tasks are performed by a remote processing device linked through a communications network. In a distributed computing environment, software modules may be located in local and/or remote memory storage devices. In addition, data being tied or rendered together in a database record may be resident in the same memory device, or across several memory devices, and may be linked together in fields of a record in a database across a network.

[0194] Reference throughout this specification to "an example" means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the example is included in at least one embodiment. Thus, appearances of the phrase "in an example" in various places throughout this specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment.

[0195] As used herein, a plurality of items, structural elements, compositional elements, and/or materials may be presented in a common list for convenience. However, these lists should be construed as though each member of the list is individually identified as a separate and unique member. Thus, no individual member of such list should be construed as a de facto equivalent of any other member of the same list solely based on its presentation in a common group without indications to the contrary. In addition, various embodiments and examples may be referred to herein along with alternatives for the various components thereof. It is understood that such embodiments, examples, and alternatives are not to be construed as de facto equivalents of one another, but are to be considered as separate and autonomous representations.

[0196] Furthermore, the described features, structures, or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments. In the following description, numerous specific details are provided, such as examples of materials, frequencies, sizes, lengths, widths, shapes, etc., to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiments. One skilled in the relevant art will recognize, however, that the embodiments may be practiced without one or more of the specific details, or with other methods, components, materials, etc. In other instances, well-known structures, materials, or operations are not shown or described in detail to avoid obscuring aspects of embodiments. [0197] It should be recognized that the systems described herein include descriptions of specific embodiments. These embodiments can be combined into single systems, partially combined into other systems, split into multiple systems or divided or combined in other ways. In addition, it is contemplated that parameters/attributes/aspects/etc. of one embodiment can be used in another embodiment. The parameters/attributes/aspects /etc. are merely described in one or more embodiments for clarity, and it is recognized that the parameters/attributes/aspects /etc. can be combined with or substituted for

parameters/attributes/etc. of another embodiment unless specifically disclaimed herein.

[0198] Although the foregoing has been described in some detail for purposes of clarity, it will be apparent that certain changes and modifications may be made without departing from the principles thereof. It should be noted that there are many alternative ways of implementing both the processes and apparatuses described herein. Accordingly, the present embodiments are to be considered illustrative and not restrictive, and the description is not to be limited to the details given herein, but may be modified within the scope and equivalents of the appended claims.

[0199] Those having skill in the art will appreciate that many changes may be made to the details of the above-described embodiments without departing from the underlying principles. The scope of the present embodiments should, therefore, be determined only by the following claims.

Claims

Claims:

1. An apparatus for a user equipment (UE), comprising:

memory configured to store a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) buffer having a memory size;

a processor coupled to the HARQ buffer and cellular interface, the processor configured to:

generate a message indicating the memory size of the HARQ buffer;

provide the message to the cellular interface for transmission to the RAN node;

generate a HARQ buffer status report describing a loading of the HARQ buffer; and

provide the HARQ buffer status report to a cellular interface for transmission to the radio access network (RAN) node.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, further comprising the cellular interface configured to process and generate messages for the RAN node.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the message is a UE capability message.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the message comprises a UE category indicating HARQ memory size.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the message indicates a minimum memory size that is less than the memory size.

6. The apparatus of any of claims 1-5, wherein the processor is further configured to process a HARQ buffer status request from the RAN node.

7. The apparatus of any of claims 1-5, wherein the processor is further configured to determine that an event trigger for generating the HARQ buffer status report has occurred.

8. The system of any of claims 1-5, wherein the processor is a baseband processor.

9. An apparatus for a base station, comprising:

a memory interface configured to store and access a user equipment (UE) hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) buffer indicator, the indicator indicating a memory size of the UE HARQ buffer;

a cellular interface configured to process and generate messages for the UE;

a processor coupled to the HARQ buffer and cellular interface, the processor configured to:

process a message from the UE indicating the memory size of the UE HARQ buffer; process a HARQ buffer status report describing a loading of the UE HARQ buffer; and

determine whether to use incremental redundancy versions (IRV) for retransmission based at least in part on the HARQ buffer status report.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the base station is an evolved Node B (eNB) or a new radio Node B (gNB).

11. The apparatus of claim 9, further comprising to generate a request to the UE for a HARQ buffer status report.

12. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the request is a radio resource control (RRC) request, media access control (MAC) request or physical layer control signaling request.

13. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the request further comprises a periodic configuration for periodic HARQ buffer status reports.

14. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the request further comprises a request for a single HARQ buffer status report.

15. The apparatus of claim 9, further comprising to generate a request for the cellular interface for transmission to the UE that includes requesting an indicator that describes the memory size of the UE HARQ buffer.

16. The apparatus of any of claims 9-15, wherein the message comprises a UE capability information element indicating the memory size of the UE HARQ buffer.

17. The apparatus of any of claims 9-15, wherein the message indicates a UE category that implies a minimum memory size of the HARQ buffer.

18. The apparatus of any of claims 9-15, wherein the processor is a baseband processor.

19. A method of managing a hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) buffer, the method comprising:

generate a message indicating the memory size of a HARQ buffer using a UE capability information element or a UE category information element;

provide the message to the cellular interface for transmission to the RAN node;

generate a HARQ buffer status report describing a loading of the HARQ buffer; and provide the HARQ buffer status report for transmission to the RAN node.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein a HARQ buffer status report timing is network controlled.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the HARQ buffer status report timing is based on an event trigger provided by the network.

22. The method of claim 19, wherein a HARQ buffer status report timing is UE controlled.

23. The method of claim 19, wherein the method further comprises determining whether to use incremental redundancy versions (IRV) based at least in part on the buffer status report.

24. An apparatus comprising means to perform a method as claimed in any of claims

19-23.

25. A machine readable medium including code, when executed, to cause a machine to perform the method of any one of claims 19-23.