HK1062093A - Method and apparatus for efficient use of communication resources in a communication system - Google Patents

Description

Method and apparatus for efficient use of communication resources in a communication system

Background

I. Field of the invention

The disclosed embodiments relate to the field of communications, and more particularly, to communications in accordance with Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) techniques.

II. background

A system for wireless communication in accordance with CDMA techniques is disclosed and described in various standards promulgated by the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA). Such standards are commonly referred to as TIA/EIA/IS-2000 and TIA/EIA/95A \ B among numerous other standards, entitled Mobile Station-Base Station Compatibility Standard for Wireless Spread Spectrum Cellular Systems, which are incorporated herein by reference. These standards have evolved over the past few years. Early versions of CDMA systems allowed communication between a base station and a mobile station in fixed length time frames and at multiple data rates. The latest version of the standard, commonly referred to as the IS-2000 standard, allows communication over time frames of different sizes and at higher data rates than earlier versions.

To maintain communication between the mobile station and the base station, a forward link may be established from the base station to the mobile station and a reverse link may be established from the mobile station to the base station. At the receiving end of the reverse link communication, the receiver may receive data frames at different data rates. The receiver may have limited resources for processing the received data frames. The communication resources used to process the data frame assignments are referred to as channel elements and may include one or more fingers for correlating with different multipath signals. The channel elements demodulate the data symbols within each received data frame. Each assigned finger provides symbol energy according to a timing hypothesis. Each received symbol energy is summed to output one data symbol. The number of data symbols within a data frame depends on the data rate of the frame. A data frame contains more data symbols at high data rates than at low data rates. Thus, processing data frames at high data rates takes up more resources than processing data frames at low data rates.

At the base station, data frames received from different mobile stations may be at different data rates. In a system operating in accordance with the IS-2000 standard, a receiver with limited resources in a base station may process data symbols at a wide range of data rates for many mobile stations in reverse link communication with the base station. Thus, according to the IS-2000 standard, when receiving data frames at a high data rate, a limited amount of communication resources may be allowed for processing data frames at a low data rate.

There is a need for a method and apparatus for efficiently processing resources for this purpose as well as for other purposes, i.e. in receivers with a limited amount of resources.

SUMMARY

In general, in a communication system, a method and apparatus for efficiently using communication resources to process a plurality of data frames is provided. Each of the plurality of data frames is divided into a plurality of portions of data symbols. A plurality of channel elements are assigned to each of the plurality of data frames. Each assigned channel element demodulates data symbols of one of the plurality of portions of data symbols. In one embodiment, the number of channel elements assigned to each data frame is based on the data rate of each data symbol of the plurality of data frames. In one embodiment, data frames having a higher data rate are allocated to a higher number of channel elements than data frames having a lower data rate. Further, in one embodiment, the number of portions of data symbols in each of the plurality of data frames may be based on a data rate of the data symbols in each of the plurality of data frames. Similarly, data frames with higher data rates may be divided into more partial numbers than data frames with lower data rates.

Brief Description of Drawings

Fig. 1 illustrates a data frame that may include any number of data symbols, denoted as "n" data symbols.

Fig. 2 illustrates a block diagram of a receiver for receiving and processing signals.

Fig. 3 illustrates a block diagram of a channel element.

Fig. 4 illustrates a timing diagram of chips generated for a number of data symbols.

Description of the preferred embodiments

Generally, a novel and improved method and accompanying apparatus provide for efficient use of communication resources in a code division multiple access communication system. The exemplary embodiments described herein are presented in the context of a digital communication system. Although advantageous for use in this context, different embodiments of the invention may be combined in different environments or configurations. In general, the various systems described herein may be formed using software-controlled processors, integrated circuits, or discrete logic. Data, instructions, commands, information, signals, symbols, and chips that may be referenced throughout the application are advantageously represented by voltages, currents, electromagnetic waves, magnetic fields or particles, optical fields or particles, or a combination thereof. Furthermore, the blocks shown in each block diagram may represent hardware or method steps.

In one embodiment, a method and apparatus are presented in a communication system for efficiently using communication resources for processing data frames. The method and accompanying apparatus include dividing a data frame into at least first and second portions of data symbols. Each data frame may include a fixed number of data symbols. Each portion may include a number of data symbols consisting of a fixed number of data symbols. When the data frame is divided into first and second portions, the first portion includes a number of fixed number of data symbols, and the second portion includes the remaining number of data symbols. Thus, the first and second portions contain all data symbols within the data frame. The first channel elements are assigned to demodulate the data symbols of the first portion of data symbols and the second channel elements are assigned to demodulate the data symbols of the second portion of data symbols. The first and second portions of data symbols are demodulated by the first and second channel elements, respectively.

The data frames may be received by a commonly known radio frequency receiver front end. The received radio frequency signal carries a data frame. The rf front end converts the received rf signal to a baseband frequency or a suitable frequency for processing. The baseband frequency signal may be used in a correlation process according to the timing of at least one finger designated for at least one data symbol within the data frame. The correlation results, such as symbol energy values, are used in the first and second channel elements of the demodulation process. In a particular embodiment, after demodulation, the demodulated data symbols from the first and second channel elements are written to RAM and subsequently read from RAM in accordance with a de-interleaving function in the communication system. Thus, dividing the data frame into at least first and second portions of data symbols enables the channel elements assigned to the first and second portions to more efficiently demodulate the data symbols within the data frame.

Referring to fig. 1, a data frame 100 is shown. Data frame 100 may include any number of data symbols, denoted as "n" data symbols. In embodiments according to the IS-2000 standard, the number of data symbols within frame 100 may vary in various increments over a range of 576 to 12288 data symbols. Given that the time frames have a common and fixed duration, the data rate of a frame with 576 data symbols is much lower than the data rate of a frame with 12288 data symbols. Thus, the frame 100 may be divided into a first portion 101 and a second portion 102. The number of data symbols in the first and second portions 101 and 102 may be equal. The number of data symbols in each portion 101, 102 may correspond to consecutive data symbols within the frame 100. For example, the data symbols in the first portion 101 may comprise a first half of the data symbols in the frame 100. The second portion 101 may comprise the second half of the data symbols within the frame 100. Alternatively, the data symbols in the first portion 101 may be odd data symbols in the frame 100 and the second portion 102 may include even data symbols.

The partitioning may occur by marking each data symbol as to whether it belongs to the first portion 101 or the second portion 102. The marking may be accomplished by tracking each data symbol from the beginning of frame 100 via a time timing scheme. Each data symbol may be represented by a number of chips. For example, eight chips may represent one data symbol at a predefined data rate. Thus, when the receiver is synchronized with the chips within each frame, the receiver tracks each data symbol based on the number of chips counted from the beginning of frame 100.

Referring to fig. 2, a block diagram of a receiver 200 configured according to one embodiment is shown. Receiver 200 may be used in a base station (not shown) for receiving reverse link signals from different mobile stations. Although only one mobile station 201 is shown, receiver 200 may receive signals from multiple mobile stations simultaneously. The received signal passes through the antenna 210 and front end 202 components. Front end 202 may be any known front end receiver for converting a received signal at radio frequency to a baseband frequency or any other frequency suitable for processing. The converted received signal is transmitted to finger resource block 203. The finger resource block 203 is associated with the received signal in accordance with at least one timing hypothesis. If the correlation process provides sufficient signal energy, the result is passed to a Combiner Element (CE) 204. A number of different timing hypotheses are typically tried in the correlation process. Selected fingers that produce symbol energies above a certain threshold are used in the processing. If more than one finger is assigned to the received signal, the results of all assigned fingers are summed in CE 204.

The combining element 204 may include a storage unit (not shown) in which the results of the combining process are stored. For example, the data symbols of the first partial data symbol 101 are stored in a storage unit CE1, e.g., of CE 204. For example, the data symbol of the second partial data symbol is stored in CE2 of CE 204. The combination of clock ticks and marking scheme (not shown to keep track of memory locations for each symbol of the data frame for simplicity). Each symbol generated by finger resource 203 is routed to its corresponding combiner element memory location depending on whether the data symbol belongs to the first portion 101 or the second portion 102.

After all data symbols associated with the data frame are stored in their respective combiner elements, the data symbols are written to a deinterleaver ram (diram) 205. The data symbols are read from DIRAM 205 and provided to a decoder (not shown) for decoding operations. Read and write operations within DIRAM 205 may be performed according to a de-interleaving function as defined by the IS-2000 standard.

Referring to fig. 3, the combined operation of finger resource 203 and combiner element 204 may be represented by channel element 300 according to one embodiment. According to CDMA communication techniques, each receiver signal is spread according to a PN code at the transmitting source. In addition, each channel in the received signal is assigned a Walsh code that is used to cover the information in the channel at the transmitting source. Thus, the received signal passes through the PN despreading operation and the Walsh decovering operation in block 301. The PN despreading operation may occur first. The result of the despreading operation is passed through a Walsh decover operation. The result of block 301 is typically generated at the chip level. A number of chips are accumulated in accumulator 302 to produce a data symbol. The accumulated chips are passed to multiplier block 303.

Each transmission source (not shown) also transmits a pilot channel. The operation and use of pilot channels is well known to those of ordinary skill in the art. Receiver 200 also processes the pilot channel to generate an estimate of the pilot channel. The pilot signal processing elements are not shown for simplicity. Multiplier block 303 multiplies the accumulated chips with the pilot channel estimate by an operation known as a dot product operation. The result is passed to a combiner element 304.

Block 301 may use several different timings of the PN sequence used in the despreading operation. Each timing will produce a different associated energy. If the correlation energy exceeds a certain threshold, the result is used. Otherwise, a different timing may be attempted. Typically, the multiple timings produce signal energy above the threshold. Once a timing is selected, fingers with the corresponding timing are assigned to despread the received signal. In this way, several fingers may be assigned. The results from each finger are corrected by an accumulation process similar to that in block 302, and pilot estimates defined by the corresponding pilot estimates similar to the operation of block 303. The data symbols generated from each finger are then passed to a combiner element 304 for the combining operation described with reference to fig. 2.

The processing time of the fingers may be such that blocks 301, 302, and 303 are used to do all processing in real time for all selected timings. For example, in the despreading process within block 301, the time required for the despreading operation of the data symbols may be less than the difference between the timing of the two fingers. Thus, processing by one finger according to its timing may be completed before the expected time to process the same data symbol according to the other finger. In this way, blocks 301, 302 and 303 may be reused by time division multiplexing of the available hardware.

The combining element 304 may be one of the combiner elements (CE1-Cen) of CE 204 as shown in FIG. 2. Data symbols identified as belonging to a certain portion of the data symbols are stored in a respective combiner element. Referring to fig. 4, a timing diagram 400 is shown that is useful in describing various embodiments. Each finger, identified as "fi", processes a number of chips to produce a respective data symbol at the output of CE 204. For example, eight chips may equal one data symbol. If the channel carrying the data symbol is allocated to three fingers, three sets of chips 401-403 are generated. Each group represents one data symbol. The groups 401-403 are passed to a common combiner element identified as "CEn", where "n" can be any identifier. Similarly, groups 404 and 405 are passed to a common combiner element. If the data symbols represented by the chips in the groups 401-403 and the data symbols represented by the groups 404-405 belong to the same data symbol portion within the data frame, all groups 401-405 are passed to the same combiner element. Otherwise, the combiner element will be different. For example, the CEn for group 401-403 may be CE1, while the CEn for group 404-405 may be CE 2. Each data symbol is identified by its associated chip as belonging to one of the data symbol portions. The groups 406 and 414 are passed to the respective combiner elements based on the identity of the data symbols they represent. Thus, it goes without saying that the resources within the receiver 200 are efficiently used by passing the data symbols of each partial data symbol to a common combiner element.

In a communication system, a method and apparatus are provided in accordance with various embodiments for efficiently processing communication resources to process data frames. The data frame is divided into a plurality of portions of data symbols. A plurality of channel elements are assigned to demodulate the plurality of portions of the data symbol accordingly. The multi-part data symbols at high data rates are higher than at low data rates.

The number of data symbols within the data frame is higher at high data rates than at low data rates. For example, the number of data symbols within a data frame may vary from 576 data symbols to 12288 data symbols in accordance with the IS-2000 standard. The data rate for a data frame with 576 data symbols may be equal to 28800 symbols per second and for a data frame with 12288 data symbols may be equal to 614400 symbols per second. A data frame of 614400 symbols per second may be divided into eight portions of data symbols. As a result, eight channel elements are allocated to demodulate the data symbols of the corresponding eight portions of data symbols. For a data frame at a lower data rate, e.g., about 3072 data symbols at 153600 per second, the data frame may be divided into two portions of data symbols, and two channel elements are respectively allocated for the two portions to demodulate the data symbols in each respective portion. For a data frame of an intermediate level data rate, e.g., 307200 symbols per second of approximately 6144 data symbols, the data frame may be divided into four portions of data symbols, and four channel elements are respectively allocated for the four portions to demodulate the data symbols in each respective portion. The plurality of assigned channel elements may demodulate the data symbols within the plurality of portions of data symbols accordingly.

Communication between a receiver and a transmission source in a communication system may be via several communication channels. The receiver may receive information regarding the data rate of the data symbols of the data frame over the communication channel of interest. The data rate information may be used to determine a number of multi-part data symbols based on the data rate of the data frame. Alternatively, the receiver may determine the data rate of each data frame by, for example, estimating the data rate of the data frame. If the estimate of the data rate turns out to be inaccurate, a new estimate may be used. The process for estimating the data rate may be repeated. In addition, the receiver may request to receive data frames at a particular data rate. A transmitting source conforming to the request transmits data frames at the requested data rate. In this way, the receiver knows the data rate of the data frame being received in advance. The data rate request message may be used to determine the number of multi-part data symbols.

The data frames may be received by a known radio frequency receiver front end. As shown and described in fig. 3, at least one data symbol within a data frame may pass through a correlation process according to the timing of at least one assigned finger. The correlated results are transmitted to the CE 304 for the combining process. The data symbols within each portion of data symbols are routed to a common combiner element. The combining element 304 may be one of the combiner elements (CE1-CEn) of CE 204 as shown in FIG. 2. The data symbols identified as belonging to a portion of the data symbols are stored in the respective combiner elements. For example, in the case where each data frame is divided into four parts, CE1, CE2, CE3, and CE4 are used for the respective four parts.

The number of chips per data symbol at the input of CE 204 may be equal to one data symbol. For example, for a basic data rate of 28800 symbols per second, a set of sixteen chips may equal one data symbol. At higher data rates, for example 153600 symbols per second, eight chips may equal one data symbol. At higher data rates, for example, 307200 symbols per second, each data symbol may be equal to four chips. Further, at higher data rates, for example 614400 symbols per second, each data symbol may be equal to two chips.

When several fingers are allocated for one data symbol of a data frame, the result of each finger is passed to a common combiner element as described. If three fingers are allocated for the channel carrying the data symbols, three sets of symbols 401-403 are generated. Each group comprises 16, 8, 4 or 2 chips depending on which of the data frames it belongs to under 28800, 153600, 307200 or 614400 symbols per second, respectively, according to the example. Each group is passed to a common combiner element identified as "CEn", where n can be any identifier. If the data symbol represented by one set of chips belongs to the same portion of data symbols within the data frame as the data symbol represented by the other set of chips, all chips within the two sets are passed to the same combiner element. Otherwise, the combiner element will be different.

For example, the CEn for the groups 401-403 may be CE1, the CEn for the groups 404-405 may be CE2, the CEn for the groups 406-409 may be CE3, the CEn for the groups 410-411 may be CE4, and the CEn for the groups 412-413 may be CE 5. The combiner elements CE2 and CE4 may correspond to two portions of data symbols of a common data frame. The combiner elements CE1 and CE5 may correspond to two portions of data symbols of another common data frame. Each data symbol is identified by its associated chip as belonging to one of the portions of the data symbol. The slice groups are passed to the respective combiner elements according to the identity of the data symbols they represent. Thus, it goes without saying that the resources within the receiver 200 are efficiently used by passing the data symbols of each part of the data symbols to a common combiner element. The combiner element may also include a storage function in which the combined data symbols from the fingers are stored. The process of writing in memory and the subsequent process of reading data symbols may be performed in accordance with a de-interleaving function in a communication system.

According to various embodiments, by dividing a data frame into portions of data symbols based on the data rate of the data frame, the assigned channel elements for each portion may more efficiently demodulate the data symbols within the data frame. In particular, when several data frames are received from several users and the data rate of the data symbols within at least one of the received data frames is at the high end of the possible data rates in the communication system, all the received data frames at the high and low data rates can be demodulated with a limited number of channel elements. For example, a data frame at a high data rate requires more channel elements than a data frame at a low data rate. By fixing a certain number of channel elements in advance to process data frames at a high data rate, it is possible to reserve fewer channel elements to process data frames with a low data rate. By dividing each data frame into a plurality of parts of data according to the data rate, it is ensured that data frames with low and high data rates are processed in most cases. Similarly, when several data frames with similar data rates are received, each data frame is divided into portions of data according to the data rate, thereby ensuring that data frames with similar data rates are processed in most cases.

In general, in accordance with various embodiments, in a communication system, a method and apparatus are provided for efficiently processing communication resources to process a plurality of data frames. Each of the plurality of data frames is divided into a plurality of portions of data symbols. Each portion of the multi-portion data symbol is assigned a plurality of channel elements. Each assigned channel element demodulates data symbols of a portion of the data symbols. The number of channel elements allocated for each data frame is based on the data rate of the data symbols in each of the plurality of data frames. Data frames having a higher data rate are allocated to a larger number of channel elements than data frames having a lower data rate.

Further, the number of the plurality of portions of data symbols within each of the plurality of frames of data is based on a data rate of the data symbols in each of the plurality of frames of data. Similarly, a data frame with a higher data rate is divided into a greater number of portions than a data frame with a lower data rate. The number of portions of data symbols may be equal to the number of channel elements allocated for each data frame. It may be necessary to receive information relating to the data rate of the data symbols for each of a plurality of data frames to determine the number of channel elements allocated and the number of data symbol portions used for the segmentation process. Each assigned channel element demodulates data symbols of the corresponding data symbol portion.

The plurality of data frames may be received through a radio frequency front end as is well known. At least one finger is assigned to each of the plurality of data frames. At least one data symbol in each of the plurality of data frames passes through a correlation process according to the timing of one or more fingers assigned to each of the plurality of data frames. When detecting several multipath signals, it may be necessary to assign a plurality of fingers to a data frame. Each finger may be assigned to a multipath signal. The correlation results are used in a plurality of channel elements for the demodulation process. Demodulated data symbols from a plurality of channel elements are written to and subsequently read from a RAM in accordance with a deinterleaving function in a communication system. Thus, the available channel elements can be used more efficiently for all data frames having different data rates.

In particular, when the data rate of the data symbols within the data frame is at the high end of the possible data rates in the communication system, dividing the data frame into two or more portions of data symbols allows the channel elements allocated for the portions of data symbols to demodulate the data symbols within the data frame in less time than would be allocated to one or more channel elements without dividing the data frame into portions of data symbols.

The previous description of the preferred embodiments is provided to enable any person skilled in the art to make or use the present invention. Various modifications to these embodiments will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art, and the generic principles defined herein may be applied to other embodiments without the use of the inventive faculty. Thus, the present invention is not intended to be limited to the embodiments shown herein but is to be accorded the widest scope consistent with the principles and novel features disclosed herein.

Claims (43)

1. In a communication system, a method for processing a data frame, comprising:

dividing said data frame into at least first and second portions of data symbols;

allocating a first channel element to demodulate data symbols of the first portion of data symbols;

allocating a second channel element to demodulate data symbols of the second portion of data symbols.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

demodulating the first and second portions of data symbols with the respective first and second channel elements.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

receiving the data frame through a front end of a radio frequency receiver;

correlating at least one data symbol within said data frame according to the timing of at least one assigned finger;

using the results of said correlation within said first and second channel elements for said demodulation.

4. The method of claim 2, further comprising:

writing demodulated data symbols from the first and second channel elements to a RAM and subsequently reading the demodulated data symbols therefrom in accordance with a de-interleaving function in the communication system.

5. In a communication system, a method for processing a data frame, comprising:

dividing said frame of data into a plurality of portions of data symbols;

allocating a plurality of channel elements to demodulate data symbols corresponding to the plurality of portions of data symbols.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

demodulating the multi-part data symbol with the respective plurality of assigned channel elements.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

receiving the data frame through a front end of a radio frequency receiver;

correlating at least one data symbol within said data frame according to the timing of at least one assigned finger;

using the results of the correlation within the plurality of channel elements used for the demodulation.

8. The method of claim 6, further comprising:

writing demodulated data symbols from the plurality of channel elements to a RAM and subsequently reading the demodulated data symbols therefrom according to a de-interleaving function in the communication system.

9. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

information is received relating to a data rate of data symbols of the data frame.

10. The method of claim 5, wherein the number of the plurality of portions of data symbols is based on a data rate of data symbols of the frame of data.

11. The method of claim 5, wherein a number of the plurality of channel elements is based on a data rate of data symbols of the data frame.

12. In a communication system, a method for processing a data frame, comprising:

dividing each of said plurality of data frames into a plurality of portions of data symbols;

a plurality of channel elements are assigned to each of the plurality of data frames to demodulate data symbols of a corresponding plurality of portions of data symbols of one of the plurality of data frames.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the number of the plurality of channel elements allocated for each data frame is based on a data rate of data symbols for each of the plurality of data frames.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the number of the plurality of portions of data symbols in each of the plurality of frames of data is based on a data rate of the data symbols in each of the plurality of frames of data.

15. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

information is received regarding a data rate of data symbols for each of the plurality of data frames.

16. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

demodulating data symbols in each of said plurality of portions of data symbols in each of said plurality of data frames with said plurality of assigned channel elements, respectively.

17. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

receiving the plurality of data frames through a radio frequency front end.

18. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

assigning at least one finger to each of the plurality of data frames;

associating with at least one data symbol in each of said plurality of data frames at said at least finger timing assigned to each of said plurality of data frames;

using the results of the correlation within the plurality of channel elements used for the demodulation.

19. The method of claim 16, further comprising:

writing demodulated data symbols from the plurality of channel elements to a RAM and subsequently reading the demodulated data symbols therefrom according to a de-interleaving function in the communication system.

20. In a communication system, an apparatus for processing a data frame, comprising:

a finger resource for dividing said data frame into a plurality of portions of data symbols;

a plurality of channel elements for demodulating data symbols corresponding to the plurality of portions of data symbols.

21. The apparatus of claim 20, further comprising:

a radio frequency receiver front end for receiving the data frame;

wherein the fingers are configured to correlate with at least one data symbol within the data frame at a timing of at least one timing hypothesis.

22. The apparatus of claim 20, further comprising:

a RAM for writing and subsequently reading demodulated data symbols from the plurality of channel elements in accordance with a de-interleaving function in the communication system.

23. The apparatus as recited in claim 20 wherein a number of said plurality of portions of data symbols is based on a data rate of data symbols of said frame of data.

24. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein a number of the plurality of channel elements is based on a data rate of data symbols of the data frame.

25. In a communication system, an apparatus for processing a plurality of data frames, comprising:

a finger resource for dividing each of the plurality of data frames into a plurality of portions of data symbols;

a plurality of channel elements assigned to each of the plurality of data frames for demodulating data symbols of the respective plurality of fractional data symbols of each of the plurality of data frames.

26. The apparatus as recited in claim 25 wherein the number of the plurality of channel elements allocated for each data frame is based on a data rate of data symbols within each of said plurality of data frames.

27. The apparatus as recited in claim 25 wherein the number of said plurality of portions of data symbols within each of said plurality of frames of data is based on a data rate of data symbols in each of said plurality of frames of data.

28. The apparatus of claim 25, further comprising:

a radio frequency front end for receiving the plurality of data frames.

29. The apparatus of claim 25, further comprising:

a RAM for writing and subsequently reading demodulated data symbols from the plurality of channel elements in accordance with a de-interleaving function in the communication system.

30. In a communication system, an apparatus for processing a data frame, comprising:

means for dividing said frame of data into a plurality of portions of data symbols;

means for allocating a plurality of channel elements to demodulate data symbols corresponding to the plurality of portions of data symbols.

31. The apparatus of claim 30, further comprising:

means for demodulating said plurality of portions of data symbols with said corresponding plurality of assigned channel elements.

32. The apparatus of claim 31, further comprising:

means for receiving the data frame by a radio frequency receiver front end;

means for correlating at least one data symbol within the data frame according to the timing of at least one assigned finger;

means for using the correlation results within the plurality of channel elements for the demodulation.

33. The apparatus of claim 31, further comprising:

means for writing demodulated data symbols from said plurality of channel elements to RAM and subsequently reading therefrom in accordance with a de-interleaving function in said communication system.

34. The apparatus as recited in claim 30 wherein a number of said plurality of portions of data symbols is based on a data rate of data symbols of said frame of data.

35. The apparatus of claim 30, wherein a number of the plurality of channel elements is based on a data rate of data symbols of the data frame.

36. In a communication system, an apparatus for processing a plurality of data frames, comprising:

means for dividing each of said plurality of data frames into a plurality of portions of data symbols;

means for allocating a plurality of channel elements for each of the plurality of data frames to demodulate data symbols of the plurality of portions of data symbols of the respective each of the plurality of data frames.

37. The apparatus of claim 36, wherein the number of the plurality of channel elements allocated for each data frame is based on a data rate of data symbols in each of the plurality of data frames.

38. The apparatus as recited in claim 36 wherein the number of said plurality of portions of data symbols in each of said plurality of frames of data is based on a data rate of data symbols in each of said plurality of frames of data.

39. The apparatus of claim 36, further comprising:

means for receiving information related to a data rate of data symbols for each of the plurality of data frames.

40. The apparatus of claim 36, further comprising:

means for demodulating data symbols in each of said plurality of portions of data symbols in each of said plurality of data frames with said plurality of assigned channel elements, respectively.

41. The apparatus of claim 36, further comprising:

means for receiving the plurality of data frames through a radio frequency front end.

42. The apparatus of claim 40, further comprising:

means for assigning at least one finger to each of said plurality of data frames;

means for correlating at least one data symbol in each of said plurality of data frames with the timing of said at least one finger assigned to one of said plurality of data frames;

means for using a result of the correlation in the plurality of channel elements for the demodulation.

43. The apparatus of claim 40, further comprising:

means for writing demodulated data symbols from said plurality of channel elements to RAM and subsequently reading therefrom in accordance with a de-interleaving function in said communication system.