Edge incremental redundancy memory structure and memory management

1. A wireless device for implementing Incremental Redundancy (IR) operations, comprising:

a memory dedicated to store data related to the IR operations of the wireless device, the memory including:

a Type I IR memory adapted to store IR status information of a Radio Link Control (RLC) data block; and

a Type II IR memory adapted to store the RLC data block.

2. The wireless device of claim 1 , wherein the IR status information includes retransmission information regarding the RLC data block, a Type II IR memory address for each stored copy of RLC data block, and Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) mode information for each stored copy of the RLC data block.

3. The wireless device of claim 2 , wherein the retransmission information includes a retransmission flag indicating a number of previous transmissions of the RLC data block.

4. The wireless device of claim 1 , wherein the Type II IR memory stores soft decision bits of the RLC data block, a puncturing pattern of the soft decision bits of the RLC data block, and a signal quality indicator of the soft decision bits of the RLC data block.

5. The wireless device of claim 3 , wherein Type II IR memory is adapted to store either punctured soft decision bits or de-punctured soft decision bits of the RLC data block.

6. The wireless device of claim 5 , wherein punctured soft decision bits are represented by a first number of bits per symbol and de-punctured soft decision bits are represented by a second number of bits per symbol, wherein the second number is greater than the first number.

7. The wireless device of claim 5 , wherein the punctured soft decision bits are represented by four bits per symbol and the de-punctured soft decision bits are represented by five bits per symbol.

8. The wireless device of claim 1 , wherein Type I IR memory is addressed based upon a block sequence number of the RLC data block.

9. The wireless device of claim 1 , wherein the Type II IR memory is operable to store soft decision bits formed by combining soft decision bits of multiple received copies of the RLC data block.

10. The wireless device of claim 1 , wherein the Type II IR memory includes a plurality of memory blocks, and wherein no more than two of the memory blocks are allocated to each RLC data block.

11. The wireless device of claim 10 , wherein no more than four of the memory blocks are allocated to store previous and current transmissions of the RLC data block.

12. A method for storing data related to Incremental Redundancy (IR) operations of a wireless device, the wireless device including a memory dedicated to store data related to the IR operations, the memory including a Type I IR memory and a Type II IR memory, the method comprising:

storing IR status information regarding a Radio Link Control (RLC) data block in the Type I IR memory;

allocating the Type II IR memory for the RLC data block;

storing an address of the allocated Type II IR memory in the Type I IR memory; and

storing at least a portion of soft decision bits of the RLC data block in the allocated Type II IR memory.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the IR status information includes retransmission information regarding the RLC data block and Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) mode information for each stored copy of the RLC data block.

14. The method of claim 12 , further comprising:

storing a puncturing pattern of the soft decision bits of the RLC data block and a signal quality indicator of the soft decision bits of the data block in the allocated Type II IR memory.

15. The method of claim 12 , further comprising:

addressing the Type I IR memory based upon a block sequence number of the RLC data block.

16. The method of claim 12 , wherein the storing at least a portion of soft decision bits of the RLC data block in the allocated Type II IR memory further includes:

storing soft decision bits formed by combining soft decision bits of multiple received copies of the RLC data block in the allocated Type II IR memory.

17. The method of claim 12 , wherein the allocating the Type II IR memory for the RLC data block further includes:

allocating no more than two memory blocks of the Type II IR memory for the RLC data block.

18. The method of claim 12 , wherein the allocating the Type II IR memory for the RLC data block further includes:

allocating no more than four memory blocks of the Type II IR memory for storage of previous and current transmissions of the RLC data block.

19. The method of claim 18 , wherein the storing at least a portion of soft decision bits of the RLC data block in the allocated Type II IR memory further includes storing punctured soft decision bits of the RLC data block in the allocated Type II memory; and further comprising:

determining when a mode switch from a higher Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) to a lower MCS of the RLC data block occurs;

determining a first number of memory blocks of the Type II memory that are needed for the lower MCS;

determining a second number of the four memory blocks of the Type II memory for the RLC data block that remain unallocated;

comparing the first number to the second number;

if the first number is greater than the second number, switching an IR storage type of the memory blocks of the Type II memory for the RLC data block to store de-punctured soft decision bits of the RLC data block.

20. The method of claim 12 , further comprising:

determining when an RLC block segmentation from a higher Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) to a lower MCS of the RLC data block occurs;

erasing all copies related to the RLC data block associated with the higher MCS stored in the Type II IR memory; and

storing outstanding copies related to the RLC data block associated with the lower MCS in the Type II memory.