This page covers 5G Protocol Stack i.e. layer 1,layer 2 and layer 3.

The 5G layer-1 is
PHYSICAL Layer. The 5G layer-2 include MAC, RLC and PDCP.The 5G layer-3 is RRC layer
as shown in 5G protocol stack.

The Figure-1 depicts 5G Protocol Stack consisting of both User Plane and Control Plane protocol
layers.

5G Layer 1 | 5G PHYSICAL Layer

Following are the functions of 5G layer 1 i.e. PHYSICAL (PHY) Layer.

•  Error detection on the transport channel and indication to higher layers
•  FEC encoding/decoding of the transport channel
•  Hybrid ARQ soft-combining
•  Rate matching of the coded transport channel to physical channels
•  Mapping of the coded transport channel onto physical channels
•  Power weighting of physical channels
•  Modulation and demodulation of physical channels
•  Frequency and time synchronisation
•  Radio characteristics measurements and indication to higher layers
•  Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna processing
•  Transmit Diversity (TX diversity)
•  Digital and Analog Beamforming
•  RF processing

Refer 5G NR PHY layer >> which describes processing of PDSCH and PUSCH channel through
PHYSICAL layer modules as defined in 38.200 series documents.

5G Layer 2 | 5G MAC, RLC, PDCP Layer

Following are the functions of 5G layer 2 i.e. MAC sublayer.

•  Beam management
•  Random access procedure
•  Mapping between logical channels and transport channels
•  Concatenation of multiple MAC SDUs belonging to one logical channel into transport block
(TB)
•  Multiplexing/demultiplexing of 5G-MAC SDUs belonging to one or different logical channels
into/from transport blocks (TB) delivered to/from the physical layer on transport channels
•  Scheduling information reporting
•  Error correction through HARQ
•  Priority handling between logical channels of one UE
•  Priority handling between UEs by means of dynamic scheduling
•  Transport format selection
•  Padding

Following are the functions of 5G layer 2 i.e. RLC sublayer.

•  Transfer of upper layer PDUs
•  Error Correction through ARQ (only for AM data transfer)
•  Reordering of 5G-RLC data PDUs (only for UM and AM data transfer)

Duplicate detection (only for UM and AM data transfer)

•  Protocol error detection (only for AM data transfer)
•  5G-RLC SDU discard (only for UM and AM data transfer)
•  Segmentation (only for UM and AM data transfer)
•  Resegmentation (only for AM data transfer)
•  5G-RLC re-establishment
Following are the functions of 5G layer 2 i.e. PDCP sublayer in user plane.
•  Transfer of user data
•  In-sequence delivery of upper layer PDUs at 5G-PDCP re-establishment procedure for 5G-
RLC AM
•  Duplicate detection of lower layer SDUs at 5G-PDCP re-establishment procedure for 5G-RLC
AM
•  Retransmission of 5G-PDCP SDUs at mobility in connected mode for 5G-RLC AM
•  Ciphering and deciphering (Note: Only AES shall be mandatory)
•  Timer-based SDU discard in uplink

Following are the functions of 5G layer 2 i.e. PDCP sublayer in user plane.
•  Ciphering and Integrity Protection (Note: Only AES shall be mandatory)
•  Transfer of control plane data

Refer 5G NR MAC layer overview >> for more information on 5G NR MAC functions, 5G NR
MAC architecture, 5G NR MAC channel mapping, 5G NR MAC procedures and format of 5G
NR MAC header and subheaders.
Refer 5G NR RLC layer overview >> for more information on 5G NR RLC modes (TM mode,
UM mode, AM mode), data structures (TMD, UMD, AMD), RLC PDUs (TMD PDU, UMD
PDU, AMD PDU), data transfers (TM, UM and AM) and RRC parameters which defines RLC
layer.

5G Layer 3 | 5G RRC Layer

Following are the functions of 5G layer 3 i.e. RRC Layer.

• Broadcasting of system informations to NAS and AS.
• Establishment, maintenance and release of RRC connection.
• Security including key management
• Establishment, configuration, maintenance and release of point-point radio bearers.
• Mobility functions along wth cell addition and cell release
• UE measurement reporting, control of UE reporting, UE based mobility
• NAS direct message transfer to/from NAS from/to UE
• Refer 5G NR UE RRC states >> and their functions and RRC IEs >> (Information Elements)
used in 5G NR UE/gNB and 5G NR system for various purposes.

Reference:
• TS V5G.300
• TS V5G.201
• 3GPP TS 38.212 (Multiplexing and channel coding), TS 38.321 (MAC specifications), TS
38.322 (RLC specifications)
•

3GPP has released specification 38.300 V1 this month about NR and NG-RAN Overall
Description: Stage 2, This standard comes with the detailed descriptions about 5G NR network
and Protocol architecture.
NR Radio User plane and Control Protocol Stack  is shown in below figures:

Figure #1 User Plane Protocol Stack                                             Figure #2 Control Plane

Protocol Stack

When we closely see both the protocol stack we could see many similarities between LTE
protocol stack and 5G-NR protocol stack because LTE protocol stack is being taken as the base
line for the development 5G-NR.

5G-NR User plane contains Phy, MAC, RLC, and PDCP same as LTE and has introduced a new
layer named as SDAP (Service Data Adaptation Protocol).

On another side, the control plane of 5G-NR is identical to LTE, here MME equivalent node
named as AMF (Access and Management Mobility Function).

5G-NR Layer 3 (RRC) Functions:

The main services and functions of the RRC sub layer include:

 Broadcast of System Information related to AS and NAS;

 Paging initiated by 5GC or NG-RAN;
  Establishment, maintenance, and release of an RRC connection between the UE and NG-RAN
including     Addition, modification, and release of carrier aggregation, Addition, modification,
and release of Dual Connectivity in NR or between E-UTRA and NR.
 Security functions including key management;
 Establishment, configuration, maintenance, and release of Signalling Radio Bearers (SRBs) and
Data Radio Bearers (DRBs);
 Mobility functions including Handover and context transfer; UE cell selection and reselection
and control of cell selection and reselection; Inter-RAT mobility.
 QoS management functions;
 UE measurement reporting and control of the reporting;
 Detection of and recovery from radio link failure;
 NAS message transfer to/from NAS from/to UE.

5G-NR Layer 2 Functions:

The layer 2 of NR is split into the following sub layers:

 Service Data Adaptation Protocol (SDAP)

 Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP)
 Radio Link Control (RLC)
 and Medium Access Control (MAC)

The two figures below depict the Layer 2 architecture for downlink and uplink, where:

 The physical layer offers to the MAC sublayer transport channels;

 The MAC sub layer offers to the RLC sublayer logical channels;
 The RLC sub layer offers to the PDCP sublayer RLC channels;
 The PDCP su blayer offers to the SDAP sublayer radio bearers;
 The SDAP su blayer offers to 5GC QoS flows;
 Comp. refers to header compression and segm. to segmentation;
 Control channels (BCCH, PCCH are not depicted for clarity).
Figure #3 Downlink Layer 2 Structure                                                    Figure #4 Uplink
Layer 2 Structure

SDAP (Service Data Adaptation Protocol) Protocol Functions :

The main services and functions of SDAP include:

 Mapping between a QoS flow and a data radio bearer  (Due to new QoS framework)
  Marking QoS flow ID (QFI) in both DL and UL packets ( DL: due to reflective QoS and UL: due to
new QoS framework)

A single protocol entity of SDAP is configured for each individual PDU session, except for DC
where two entities can be configured.

PDCP (Packet Data Convergence Protocol) Layer Functions:

The main services and functions of the PDCP sublayer for the user plane include:

 Sequence Numbering
 Header compression and decompression: ROHC only
 Transfer of user data
 Reordering and Duplicate detection (if in order delivery to layers above PDCP is required)
 PDCP PDU routing (in case of split bearers)
 Retransmission of PDCP SDUs
 Ciphering and Deciphering
 PDCP SDU discard
 PDCP re-establishment and data recovery for RLC AM
 Duplication of PDCP PDUs

The main services and functions of the PDCP sublayer for the control plane include:

  Sequence Numbering;
 Ciphering, deciphering and integrity protection;
 Transfer of control plane data;
 Duplicate detection;
 Duplication of PDCP PDUs.

RLC (Radio Link Control ) Layer Functions: 

The main services and functions of the RLC sublayer depend on the transmission mode and
include:

 Transfer of upper layer PDUs

 Sequence numbering independent of the one in PDCP
 Error Correction through ARQ
 Segmentation and re-segmentation
 Reassembly of SDU
 RLC SDU discard
 RLC re-establishment

Note:  no concatenation and no reordering

MAC (Media Access Control) Layer Functions

The main services and functions of the MAC sub layer include:
  Mapping between logical channels and transport channels
 Multiplexing/demultiplexing of MAC SDUs belonging to one or different logical channels
into/from transport blocks (TB) delivered to/from the physical layer on transport channels
 Scheduling Information Reporting
 Error correction through HARQ
 Priority handling between UEs by means of dynamic scheduling
 Priority handling between logical channels of one UE by means of logical channel prioritization
 Padding

A single MAC entity can support one or multiple numerologies and/or TTI durations and
mapping restrictions in logical channel prioritization controls which numerology and/or TTI
duration a logical channel can use.

NR Radio Protocol Stack Architecture is almost same as LTE Radio Protocol Stack
Architecture. If you are already familiar with LTE protocol stack or general concept of radio
protocol stack, you would not need to spend too much time in reading this page. Just take a
brief look at the various figures / diagrams shown in this page would be enough. If you are
new to the concept of LTE/NR radio protocol stack, I would suggest you to go through this
page whenever you have chance and try to form your own big picture.
I would not describe much details on each component of the protocol stack in this page. It is
too much to describe everything in a single page. The purpose of this page is to provide you
with some big picture or intuitive understanding of the radio protocol stack. Most of the
fundamental idea in this page comes from 3GPP 38.300.
 
As in LTE / WCDMA, NR radio protocol stack has two different stack depending on the type
of data that is processed by the stack. If the data is Signaling message, it goes through the
C-plane stack and if it is user data, it goes through U-Plane stack. Both U-Plane and C-Plane
is made up of a common structure : PHY <-> MAC <-> RLC <-> PDCP, but the components
sitting on top of PHY/MAC/RLC/PDCP gets different between C-Plane and U-Plane. In case of
U-Plane, a layer called SDAP is sitting at the top of the radio stack and the SDP is connected
to UPF (User Plane Function). In case of C-Plane, the two layers RRC and NAS are sitting at
the top of the stack. NAS layer gets connected to AMF (Access and Mobility Management
Function).
What I've mentioned can be described in a block diagram as shown below.
 
 
Now let's look just one step further into the protocol stack. Take a look at the L2 (layer 2)
structure of the NR U-Plane radio protocol. The structure of L2 downlink stack can be
illustrated as shown below. Except the new layer called SDAP, you would notice that the
overall structure is almost identical to LTE L2 structure. NR support carrier aggregation from
the beginning, data for each carrier is processed separately for each carrier in SDAP, PDCP,
RLC and multiplexed/scheduled in the common MAC layer. This is also same as LTE Rel 10
or higher.
 
 
Following is L2 structure of NR U-Plane Uplink radio protocol. Basic structure is same as
downlink structure except that Uplink does not support carrier aggregation.
 
 
 

The 5G NR radio access network is comprised of these protocol entities:

 Service data adaptation protocol (SDAP)

 Packet data convergence protocol (PDCP)

 Radio link control (RLC)

 Medium access control (MAC)

 Physical layer (PHY)

The SDAP protocol is new in 5G NR compared to the LTE protocol stack. SDAP handles the
new QoS framework of the 5G System (in the 5G Core). SDAP applies also to LTE when
connected to the 5G Core. The introduction of SDAP enables end-to-end QoS framework that
works in both directions.

To meet the desired key capabilities of 5G NR, the other layers of the stack provide various
enhancements over their LTE counterparts. The PDCP, RLC, and MAC protocols handle tasks
such as header compression, ciphering, segmentation and concatenation, and multiplexing and
demultiplexing. PHY handles coding and decoding, modulation and demodulation, and antenna
mapping.

This figure shows the 5G NR user plane protocol stack for user equipment (UE) and the NR
radio access network node (gNB). 5G Toolbox™ supports the 5G NR physical layer, including
physical channels and signals. The toolbox also supports interfacing with portions of the RLC
and MAC layers, including transport channels and logical channels.
Downlink Channel Mapping

5G NR system downlink data follows the mapping between logical channels, transport channels,
and physical channels, as indicated in the diagram. 5G Toolbox provides the red-highlighted
downlink functionality for physical channels, transport channels, and control information.
Uplink Channel Mapping

5G NR system uplink data follows the mapping between logical channels, transport channels,
and physical channels, as indicated in the diagram. 5G Toolbox provides the red-highlighted
uplink functionality for physical channels, transport channels, and control information.
References

[1] 3GPP TS 38.211. “NR; Physical channels and modulation.” 3rd Generation Partnership
Project; Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network.

[2] 3GPP TS 38.212. “NR; Multiplexing and channel coding.” 3rd Generation Partnership
Project; Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network.

[3] 3GPP TS 38.300. “NR; NR and NG-RAN Overall Description.” 3rd Generation Partnership
Project; Technical Specification Group Radio Access Network.

G protocol or NR protocol stack is very much similar to the LTE (4G) protocol stack. Similar to
4G (LTE), depending upon the direction of data to be processed, 5G radio protocol stack has two
categories:

1. Control Plane (C-Plane) Stack

2. User Plane Stack
Control Plane (C-Plane) Stack

If the type of data is signaling or controlling message, then it is sent/forwarded through the
control plane.

User Plane Stack

User data is sent/ forwarded through the user plane.

Stacks of both control and user plane have almost the same structure. They both have the
common structure for PHY, MAC, RLC, and PDCP layers as shown in the figure. However, the
layers above the PDCP layer are different.

Have a look at the below figures to easily understand and get an overview of it. The main aim is
to develop an intuition of how the 5G protocol stack looks like.
Now, let's go one step deeper and have a look at the internal details of the protocol stack. Below
is the figure of downlink L2 (layer 2) stack.

One important thing we can note here that the structure of LTE L2 and NR L2 is very much
similar except that one new layer, SDAP, is added in NR. Carrier aggregation is supported in NR
from the start. In NR, data for each carrier is processed independently in SDAP layer, PDCP
layer, RLC layer and is basically multiplexed in MAC layer.

Now, let's discuss the structure of NR L2 user plane ( U-Plane) uplink protocol. We can observe
in the below figure that the basic structure of both uplink and downlink is very much similar. The
only major difference is the uplink stack that of downlink stack is it does not have support for
carrier aggregation.