5G PHY Layer Processing

Anil Kumar Shaw

Research Engineer
 Document Structure of PHY Layer
• Services and functions of the physical layer;
• Model of physical layer of the UE;
• Parallel transmission of simultaneous physical
channels and SRS;
• Measurements provided by the physical layer

• Channel Coding and Rate matching

details
• DCI format details

• RSRP(SS/CSI-RS)
• Frame Structure and • SINR
Physical resources • RSRQ
• Modulation and OFDM
signal generation
• Layer mapping and
precoding
• PRACH, PSS and SSS

• Synchronization procedure
• Random access
• HARQ procedure
• Bandwidth part operation
• Radio link monitoring
• UL power control

Ref: 3GPP 38.201

Frame Structure
Frame Structure

PRB is the 12 subcarrier for 1 slot duration

Frame Structure
 Extended Cyclic Prefix (ECP) is for SCS 60 KHz
and for large cells
 Numerology-4 : 240 kHz sub-carrier spacing

can be  used to provide broadcast signals at

millimeter-wave
 All other Sub-carrier spacing are supported

for data and signaling except 60 KHz which is

for data Physical channels only
Why Multiple Numerology

Ref: Media-Tek 5G NR White Paper

Frequency Bands
 3GPP has defined two operating frequency
ranges for 5G as follows:
◦ FR1 (Sub 6GHz) corresponds to 450 MHz – 6,000
MHz
◦ FR2 (mmWave) corresponds to 24,250 MHz –
52,600 MHz
 In FR1 numerology 0 and 1 are supported
 In FR2 Numerology 3 and 4 are supported
 Numerology 2 can be used in both FR1 and

FR2
Transmission Bandwidth
Bandwidth Part
 A Bandwidth Part (BWP) is a contiguous set of physical resource blocks (PRBs) on a
given carrier
  Each BWP defined for a numerology can have following three different parameters
◦ Subcarrier spacing
◦ Symbol duration
◦ Cyclic prefix (CP) length
 Physical Channels & Signals
NR Channels/Signals Description
PUSCH This is used to deliver TB from various Uplink transport
PUSCH-DMRS, PUSCH-PTRS channels. As such, it can carry both UP and CP information

PUCCH PUCCH-DMRS This is used to carry various feedback from the devices to the
gNB. The information is identified collectively as UCI

PRACH This is used by devices wanting to access a NR cell.

Uplink

SRS The UL SRS is sent by devices to enable the gNB to better evaluate
the uplink

PDSCH This is used to deliver TB from various downlink transport

PDSCH-DMRS, PDSCH-PTRS channels. As such, it can carry both UP and CP information

PBCH This is used to carry the Broadcast Channel(BCH) which includes

PBCH-DMRS the MIB

PDCCH This is used to carry the DCI. In so doing, both DL and UL

PDCCH-DMRS scheduling message as well as other control information can be
sent

CSI-RS It is a part of a mechanism that enable a device to measure the

radio channel and report back to the gNB
nlink

PSS The primary synchronization signal (PSS) is linked to the cell

identity within the group
NR SS/PBCH Block
 Synchronization Signal Block (SSB) includes
PSS, SSS and PBCH
 SS block transmitted over 4 OFDM symbols

across 240 subcarriers

 SS block is repeated at least once every 20 ms
NR SS/PBCH Block
 The set of SS blocks within a beam-sweep is
referred to as an SS burst set
 SS burst set is flexible with a minimum period

of 5ms and a maximum period of 160ms

 The maximum number of SS blocks within an

SS burst set is different for different

frequency bands
◦ 4 SSB for frequency band below 3 GHZ
◦ 8 SSB for frequency band between 3 GHz and 6 GHz
◦ 64 SSB for higher frequency bands (FR2)
NR PBCH Channel
 The main role of PBCH is to transport the MIB.
 In addition to the MIB PBCH payload also

includes additional layer 1 timing information

NR Physical Downlink Control
Channel
 The PDCCH carries the DCI. It’s scheduled
based on RNTI
 The DCI is mapped to 1 or more CCE with

each CCE consisting of 6 REGs

 In addition to a CCE NR define

CORESET for the PDCCH. This

consist of frequency domain
RB.
NR Physical Downlink Shared Channel
 The NR PDSCH is used to deliver TB from the
gNB to the device.
 DMRS and PTRS are the reference signal
associated with PDSCH
 DM-RS is used for channel estimation as part of
coherent demodulation of PDSCH and to
compensate for the common phase error PTRS is
used
 PDSCH Utilizes LDPC coding instead of Turbo
coding used by LTE as LDPC consumes lesser
power
PRACH
 PRACH is used to achieve UL synchronization
and to obtain the resource for Message 3
(e.g, RRC connection Request)
 It transport the preamble sequence, with

maximum number of NR PRACH sequence for

a cell set to 64
 The PRACH parameters will be obtained by

the device from reading SIB1(System

Information Type1) or BWP common
parameters
PRACH
PRACH
PRACH
PRACH
PUCCH
 PUCCH is an uplink physical channel that
carries UCI (Uplink Control Information)
 A big difference between DCI and UCI is that
UCI can be carried either by PUCCH or PUSCH
depending on situation whereas DCI can be
carried only by PDCCH
 The contents of UCI is as follows (this is same
as LTE):
• ACK/NAK
• Scheduling Request (SR)
• CSI
PUSCH
 In 5G NR, PUSCH is the physical uplink
channel that carries both user data in
addition to UCI
 DM-RS and PT-RS are the reference signals

associated with PUSCH.

 There are Two uplink option:-

◦ CP-OFDM: Ideally suited for MIMO
◦ DFTs-OFDM: Suited for low power devices e.g: IoT
devices
PUSCH
Thank You