Individual interleaving of data streams for MIMO transmission

1. A method of transmitting data using a number of transmit antennas greater than an expected number of receive antennas, comprising:

forming a group of transmit antennas;

forming from a first data stream multiple second data streams, including a second data stream for each of said antennas, successive bits in said first data stream being assigned to different ones of said second data streams;

individually performing block interleaving of multiple respective ones of said second data streams; and

during a particular transmission interval, performing tone interleaving with respect to said antennas such that for each tone of an OFDM symbol, that tone is non-zero for just one antenna of the group of antennas and is zero for other antennas of the group of antennas.

2. The method of claim 1 , comprising performing space time block coding of said OFDM symbols prior to transmission.

3. A transmitter for transmitting data using a number of transmit antennas greater than an expected number of receive antennas, comprising:

means for forming a group of transmit antennas;

means for forming from a first data stream multiple second data streams, including a second data stream for each of said antennas, successive bits in said first data stream being assigned to different ones of said second data streams;

means for individually performing block interleaving of multiple respective ones of said second data streams; and

means for, during a particular transmission interval, performing tone interleaving with respect to said antennas such that for each tone of an OFDM symbol, that tone is non-zero for just one antenna of the group of antennas and is zero for other antennas of the group of antennas.

4. The apparatus of claim 3 , comprising means for performing space time block coding of said OFDM symbols prior to transmission.

5. A method of transmitting data using a number of transmit antennas greater than an expected number of receive antennas, comprising:

forming from a first data stream multiple second data streams, successive bits in said first data stream being assigned to different ones of said second data streams;

individually performing block interleaving of multiple respective ones of said second data streams;

forming symbols from respective ones of said second data streams; and

rearranging frequency bin information of said OFDM symbols by, during successive transmission intervals, transmitting from one antenna within one frequency bin of an OFDM symbol frequency bin information taken from different ones of said second data streams followed by equivalent transformed frequency bin information.

6. The method of claim 5 , further comprising encoding said first data stream.

7. The method of claim 5 , wherein, for at least some of said OFDM symbols, frequency bin information for a particular OFDM symbol is taken from an even number, greater than two, of said second data streams.

8. A data transmitter wherein a number of transmit antennas greater than an expected number of receive antennas, comprising:

means for forming at least one pair of antennas;

means for forming from a first data stream multiple second data streams, successive bits in said first data stream being assigned to different ones of said second data streams;

means for individually performing block interleaving of multiple respective ones of said second data streams;

means for forming symbols from respective ones of said second data streams; and

means for forming OFDM symbols such that, during successive transmission intervals, a pair of antennas transmits OFDM symbols taken from different ones of said second data streams followed by equivalent transformed OFDM symbols,

wherein for each OFDM symbol, frequency bin information for that OFDM symbol is taken from a single one of said second data streams.

9. The apparatus of claim 8 , further comprising means for encoding said first data stream.