5G NR Interleaving and Rate Matching With Minimal LLR Buffering

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Solution Overview

Problem

In 5G NR wireless communication systems, implementing interleaving after rate matching requires large buffer sizes due to the repetition interleaving scheme, leading to significant memory area penalties in circuitry implementation.

Innovation Solution

The use of multiple interleaver and rate matching engines operating in parallel on the transmit side, and multiple de-interleaver and de-rate matching engines on the receive side, allows for on-the-fly processing of data, reducing the required memory size for buffering log likelihood ratios (LLRs).

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If interleaving is performed after rate matching with repetition scheme, then data can be transmitted with improved error performance, but large buffer sizes are required resulting in significant memory area penalties

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveerror performanceVSAvoidmemory area
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSArea of stationary object

Solution Approach 1:

The patent performs interleaving operations on-the-fly immediately after rate matching without buffering the intermediate repeated LLRs. By processing data in a pipelined manner where interleaving is applied as data flows through the system, the invention eliminates the need for large buffers while maintaining the error performance benefits of repetition interleaving

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The invention extracts and removes the buffering step from the traditional interleaving-after-rate-matching process. By taking out the intermediate storage requirement and replacing it with direct on-the-fly processing, the patent eliminates the memory area penalty while preserving the reliability improvements from the repetition scheme

Inventive Principle:
Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Data Source

PatentEP3721560B1On the fly interleaving/rate matching and deinterleaving/de-rate matching for 5g nr
Publication Date: 2025.03.05 QUALCOMM INC
  • EP3721560B1 patent drawingFigure 1
  • EP3721560B1 patent drawingFigure 2
  • EP3721560B1 patent drawingFigure 3A

AI summary

In an aspect, a method of encoding data for transmission includes reading, for a block of encoded data on which interleaving and rate-matching is to be performed, the block of encoded data from a buffer, by first and second interleaving and rate matching engines operating in parallel and, starting at first and second starting points of the buffer, respectively. Encoded output data includes the interleaved and rate matched data from both engines. In another aspect, a method of decoding received data includes reading data of a log likelihood ratio (LLR) buffer, by first and second de-interleaving and de-rate matching engines, starting at first and second starting points of the LLR buffer, respectively. Decoded output data includes de-interleaved and de-rate matched data of both engines.