Patent ID: 7869415

Claim:
In an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) wireless communication system, a method of mapping physical control format indicator channel (PCFICH) symbols to resource elements in one of a plurality of OFDM symbols associated with a downlink slot, the method comprising: determining the position, K 0 , of a first one of the resource elements in the OFDM symbol; and mapping each of the PCFICH symbols in groups of four to a corresponding set of four resource elements, in the OFDM symbol as a function of K 0 , N RB DL divided by two (N RB DL /2), and the N SC RB , wherein a first group of four PCFICH symbols is mapped to a first set of four resource elements in the OFDM symbol, where the first resource element of the first set of four resource elements is at the position K 0 , and wherein a second group of four PCFICH symbols is mapped to a second set of four resource elements in the OFDM symbol, where the first resource element of the second set of four resource elements is at a position defined by K 0 +└N RB DL /2┘*N SC RB /2, wherein K 0 is the position of a first one of the resource elements in the OFDM symbol, N RB DL is the number of resource blocks in downlink, and N SC RB is the number of resource elements per resource block in a frequency domain.