Apple Inc.
Decoding of PCFICH in LTE for power savings and range improvement

Abstract:

A mobile device (UE) may decode the Physical Control Format Indicator Channel (PCFICH) blindly, which may include obtaining resource elements (REs) that are reserved for the Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH), based on a largest value of a control format indicator (CFI), finding a total number of control channel elements (CCEs) according to the obtained REs, numbering the CCEs, and decoding the PDCCH for the largest value of the CFI over the numbered CCEs. Accordingly, the UE does not need to decode the PCFICH specifically. In some cases, the UE may indicate to the network that the UE is a constrained device, and the network may transmit control information according to a value intended for use by constrained devices. The UE may receive the transmitted value, and instead of decoding the PCFICH it may decode the control information based at least on the received value.