Method and apparatus for soft buffer management for carrier aggregation

1. A wireless communication apparatus supporting multiple carriers, the multiple carriers comprising at least two component carriers, each component carrier is associated with a configured bandwidth, the apparatus comprising:

a receiver;

a memory element; and

one or more processors coupled to the receiver and to the memory element, the one or more processors being configured to:

determine a size of a soft buffer memory partition of the memory element for a first component carrier based on a first configured bandwidth of the first component carrier and a second configured bandwidth of a second component carrier and a total number of soft channel bits,

wherein the total number of soft channel bits is determined based on a second number corresponding to a hybrid automatic retransmit request processes determined, based at least in part, on a number of Multiple Input Multiple Output streams, and

control the receiver to receive data on the first component carrier based on the size of the soft buffer memory partition.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to determine the size of the soft buffer memory partition based on a maximum number of spatial multiplexing layers supported on the first component carrier.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein a ratio of the size of the soft buffer memory partition for the first component carrier and a size of the soft buffer memory partition for the second component carrier is substantially equal to a ratio of the first configured bandwidth of the first component carrier and the second configured bandwidth of the second component carrier.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the first configured bandwidth of the first component carrier is not equal to the second configured bandwidth of the second component carrier.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to determine the size of the soft buffer memory partition based on a bandwidth corresponding to a signaled category of the wireless communication apparatus.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to re-determine the size of the soft buffer memory partition for the first component carrier in response to a change in an activation or a change in a configuration of the second component carrier.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to re-determine the size of the soft buffer memory partition for the first component carrier based on a change in a transmission mode of the second component carrier.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to determine the size of the soft buffer memory partition based on a first number associated with the hybrid automatic retransmit request process, the first number comprises a maximum number of downlink hybrid automatic retransmit request processes on the first component carrier.

9. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the processor is configured to determine the size of the soft buffer memory partition based on a second number associated with hybrid automatic retransmit request processes, the second number comprising a configured maximum number of hybrid automatic retransmit request processes on the second component carrier.

10. The apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein the total number of soft channel bits is determined based on any one of the following:

a category of the wireless communication apparatus;

a first number associated with hybrid automatic retransmit request processes determined based at least in part on duplex mode; or

a maximum number of transport blocks transmittable to the wireless communication apparatus in one transmission time interval.

11. A method in a wireless communication apparatus supporting multiple carriers, the multiple carriers comprising at least two component carriers, each component carrier is associated with a corresponding configured bandwidth, the method comprising:

determining, using one or more processors, a size of a soft buffer memory partition associated with receiving data on a first component carrier, the size of the soft buffer memory partition determined based on a first configured bandwidth of a first component carrier and a second configured bandwidth of a second component carrier and a total number of soft channel bits,

wherein the total number of soft channel bits is determined based on a second number corresponding to a hybrid automatic retransmit request processes determined, based at least in part, on a number of Multiple Input Multiple Output streams; and

receiving, using the one or more processors, data on the first component carrier based on the soft buffer memory partition size.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the first and second component carriers are at least partially non-overlapping.

13. The method of claim 11 , determining the size of the soft buffer memory partition based on either a total number of soft channel bits or a first number associated with hybrid automatic retransmit request processes associated with the first component carrier.

14. A method in a wireless communication apparatus supporting multiple carriers, the multiple carriers comprising at least two component carriers, the method comprising:

determining, using one or more processors, a size of a soft buffer memory partition for a hybrid automatic retransmit request (HARQ) process associated with a first component carrier of the multiple carriers based on a number of soft channel bits associated with the first component carrier, a maximum number of spatial multiplexing layers supported on the first component carrier, a first number associated with the HARQ process associated with the first component carrier, and a total number of soft channel bits,

wherein the total number of soft channel bits is determined based on a second number corresponding to a hybrid automatic retransmit request processes determined, based at least in part, on a number of Multiple Input Multiple Output streams; and

receiving, using the one or more processors, a data transmission on the first component carrier based on the determined size of the soft buffer memory partition.

15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the size of the soft buffer memory partition is based on a second number associated with the HARQ process associated with the first component carrier.

16. A wireless communication apparatus supporting multiple carriers comprising at least two component carriers, wherein each component carrier is associated with a configured bandwidth, the apparatus comprising:

a transceiver;

a processor coupled to the transceiver, the processor being configured to:

determine a size of a soft buffer memory partition for a hybrid automatic retransmit request (HARQ) process associated with a first component carrier of the multiple carriers based on a number of soft channel bits associated with the first component carrier, a maximum number of spatial multiplexing layers supported on the first component carrier, a first number associated with HARQ process associated with the first component carrier, and a total number of soft channel bits,

wherein the total number of soft channel bits is determined based on a second number corresponding to a hybrid automatic retransmit request processes determined, based at least in part, on a number of Multiple Input Multiple Output streams; and

receive, via the transceiver, a data transmission on the first component carrier based on the determined size of the soft buffer memory partition.