LTE Physical Layer Interview

Questions & Answers

01. Define Frame Structure?
Ans. To know all about lte frame structure click here and to know more about
5G Frame Structure click here.

02. How many Sub-frame present in single Frame-Structure, and size of each

Sub-Frame in Time-domain?
Ans. In 1 Radio Frame (Single frame structure) have 10 Sub-frame, each sub-
frame have equal size of 1ms in time-domain.

03. How many Time-Slot are present in Sub-Frame?

Ans. 2 time slot (Tslot) are present in 1 sub-frame.

04. What is Cyclic Prefix(CP) in Frame-Structure?

Ans. Cyclic Prefix are used to avoid interference of OFDMA symbols.

05. What is Sampling rate in LTE? What is the Sampling rate of Normal CP and

Extended CP?
Ans. The sampling rate use in LTE:

LTE Bandwidth Sampling rate in Sampling rate of Normal CP/Extended

support lte CP

1.4 Mhz 128 10/9

 3 Mhz 256 20/18

5 Mhz 512 40/36

10 Mhz 1024 80/72

15 Mhz 2048Ts 160/144

20 Mhz 2048Ts 160/144

06. How many OFDM symbols are available in 1 Time slot in Normal CP and

Extended CP? In Frequency-domain or Time-domain? in Sub-Frame and

Frame?
Ans. Following Information are available in sub-frame, radio frame:
 In 1 Time slot 7 OFDM symbols in Normal CP and 6 OFDM in Extended CP
symbols are available.
 In frequency domain 84RE Normal CP and 72 RE in Extended CP are
available.
 In 1 sub-frame 14 OFDM symbols in Normal CP and 12 OFDMA in
Extended CP symbols are present respectively.
 1 Radio frame have 140 OFDMA symbols in Normal CP and 120 OFDMA in
Extended CP symbols are present.

07. Difference between OFDMA and SC-FDMA? What is the reason that OFDMA

using in downlink and SC-FDMA using in uplink direction?

Ans. In OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) structures the
unique bandwidth is subdivided into more than one sub-carriers. Each of this
sub-carriers can them be in my opinion modulated. Typically in OFDM
structures we are able to have loads of sub-carriers with a content spacing
between them (15KHz on the LTE case). Since the multiple sub-carriers in OFDM
are transmitted in parallel, it’s possible for every one to transmit with a lower
image rate. That improves robustness at the technology for mobile
propagation conditions.

It is not possible to use OFDMA on the uplink because, as told before, it

offers a high Peak-to-average Power Ratio. SC-FDMA (Singe Carrier FDMA)
presents the advantage of a single service multiplexing of getting a decrease
Peak-to-average Power Ratio. On SC-FDMA before making use of the IFFT the
symbols are pre coded via a DFT (Discrete Fourier Transform). This manner
each sub-carrier after de IFFT will contain part of each symbol. Looking to the
determine bellow it's miles viable to look the distinction among SC-FDMA and
OFDMS. Also, it's miles feasible to be aware that the inter symbol interference
may be reduced for the reason that all sub-carriers on a time frame represent
the identical symbol.

08. Define Sub-Carrier? How many Sub-Carrier are present in Resource

Block(RB)?
Ans. Sub-carrier spacing is decided through a situation of orthogonality
between the sub-carriers, which allows to decode every one without
interference form its neighbors.

I think if we note to general sub-carrier in distinct LTE Bandwidth we are

able to identified the answer. 20MHz->1200subcarrier, 15MHz->900, 10MHZ-
>600, 5MHz->300, 3MHz->180, 1.4MHZ->72 (with 10% protect band for all), 12 is
the greatest common divisor of them.

09. What is the Smallest unit of Sub-Carrier?

Ans. In normal or extended it’s 15 Khz. But in MBSFN operations it’s 7.5 Khz.

10. In extended CP. How many resource elements present in a Resource

Block(RB)?
Ans. Total 72 Resorce Elements are present in single Resorce Block.
11. In Normal CP. How many resource elements(RE) present in a Resource
Block(RB)?
Ans. 84 Resource Elements are present in a Resource Block.

12. Difference between RB and PRB? their length in Time-domain and

Frequency-domain?
Ans. If we talk in time domain then we know that 1 resource block have 0.5ms
length, but if we talk frequency domain of 12 sub-carriers then we gave reply of
1 PRB. The only difference is RB in time domain and PRB in frequency domain.

13. What is the reason that OFDMA are using in downlink and SC-FDMA in
uplink?
Ans. Follow the Ques-No. 7 ans.

14. Types of Physical Channel?

Ans. In downlink PDSCH, PBCH channels we have, Instead of these PHICH,
PCFICH, PDCCH also physical channel work only in physical layer these channel
don’t have any transport channels.
In uplink PUSCH, PRACH channels we have, instead of these PUCCH also use
only in physical in uplink direction.

15. Describe Physical Control Channel and Shared Channel?

Ans. Common channels means that are common for all users. in physical layer
we have some control channel like PDCCH, PCFICH, PHICH, PUCCH Shared
channels are PDSCH, PUSCH. Note* in logical channel and transport channel
have different-different common channels.

16. Describe Downlink Channel and Uplink Channel in Physical control

Channel?
Ans. PDCCH, PCFICH, PHICH in downlink & PUCCH is physical uplink control
channel.

17. Describe Downlink Channel and Uplink Channel in Physical Shared

Channel?
Ans. PDSCH in downlink & PUSCH in uplink.
18. Describe Primary Synchronization Signal(PSS) and Secondary
Synchronization Signal(SSS)?
Ans. PSS and SSS are using for synchronization with network. To read more
about PSS and SSS just clich here and read Que-08 to Que-11 Answers

19. Define which Sequence eNB used to generate PSS and SSS?
Ans. To read this answer please click here and read Que.12 ans

20. What are the job of Reference Signal in LTE? How many Reference Signal are
present in 1 Resource Block(RB)? How many types of Reference Signal are
available in LTE and their Description?
Ans. Reference signal are using for channel estimation and pci validation.
There are 4 reference signals are present in 1 RB. In rel-9 there are 4 types of
reference signals are present (1. Cell specific, 2. UE specific, 3. MBMS specifc, 4.
position specific). CSI reference signals further using in next 3GPP releases.

21. Radio Channel Processing step?

Ans. This section describes a well-known structure, relevant to a couple of
physical channel.
The base-band signal representing a downlink physical channel is described
in terms of the subsequent steps:
 scrambling of coded bits in each of the code words to be transmitted on
a physical channel
 Modulation of scrambled bits to generate complicated values for
modulated symbols
 Mapping of the complex-valued modulation symbols onto one or
numerous transmission layers
 Pre coding of the complex-valued modulation symbols on every layer for
transmission on the antenna ports
 Mapping of complex-valued modulation symbols for every antenna port
to resource elements
 Generate complex-valued time-domain OFDM signal for every antenna
port
22. Describe Master Information Block (MIB)? System Frame Number (SFN) and

PHICH?
Ans. For more information of MIB click here and read Que.12 Answer.
For more information of SFN click here and read Que.15 & Que.19 Answer.
For more information of PHICH click here and read Que.30 Answer.

23. Describe PBCH and its position in Frame Structure and what Information

Carried by PBCH?
Ans. PBCH stands for Physical Broadcast Channel. In lte PBCH have fixed
position on Tslot 1 starting 4 ofdm symbols.
• Total 240 bits PBCH reserve in Downlink Frame Structure.
• PBCH carry MIB information.
• PBCH present in every radio frame, sub-frame 0 and Tslot 1.

24. Describe PCFICH? its position in Frame Structure and Information Carried by

PCFICH?
Ans. PCFICH stands for Physical Control Format Indicator Channel.
PCFICH provides the information how many ofdm symbols using by PDCCH.
It works on Resource Element Group [REG].
1 REG == 4RE
if PDCCH reserve 1 ofdm symbol than PCFICH have 4 REG. Location at PRB 0,1,3
and 4th.
25. Describe PDCCH? its position in Frame Structure and Information Carried by

PDCCH?
Ans. PDCCH stands for Physical Downlink Control Channel.
PDCCH position may varying as per traffic available on eNodeB
For e.g. in 1.4 MHz PDCCH can use ofdm symbols 1, 2, 3.
Reaming 3, 5,10,15,20 MHz bandwidth PDCCH can use ofdm symbols 0, 1, 2.
PDCCH present in every frame every sub frame starting ofdm symbols.

26. Describe PDSCH? its position in Frame Structure and Information Carried by

PDSCH?
Ans. PDSCH stands for Physical Downlink Shared Channel.
PDSCH present in every radio frame, every sub-frame.
PDSCH carry user related data.

27. Define PUCCH? its position in Frame Structure and Information Carried by

PUCCH?
Ans. PUCCH stands for Physical Uplink Control Channel.
Frame time and slot time in Uplink is the same as the downlink. And the useful
resource block structure is also equal both in uplink and downlink. 7 symbols in
one slot is equal in both uplink and downlink.

A little bit of differences you would note would be the location of the each
channel. Normally in downlink case, a channel has a tendency to lie across the
entire bandwidth but the channels within the uplink slot seem to be more
localized. For example, PUCCH is located most effective at the lowest and
highest result in frequency domain and reference indicators additionally
localized in time area or both time domain and frequency area.

28. Define PUSCH? its position in Frame Structure and Information Carried by

PUSCH?
Ans. PUSCH stands for Physical Uplink Shared Channel.
The above Que.27 image had shown the PUSCH position in uplink frame
structure.
PUSCH carry user data in uplink direction.
ENodeB give resources to ue on DCI format 0, ue use allocated resource for
transmitting their data in uplink direction.

29. What Modulation Technique are using in all Physical-Channel?

Ans. Modulation techniques are provided in DCI in downlink direction from
eNodeB to ue.
And UCI in uplink direction from UE to ENodeB.
Total DCI formats are using Pdcch channel and UCI are using in Pucch channel.

30. What is REG?

Ans. The Resource Element Group is a group of 4 consecutive resource
elements.
PCFICH, PDCCH and PHICH resource elements are counts by how many REG
present in a radio frame.
 31. What is CCE? How many CCE’s are required to carry PDCCH? Explain

different configurations?
Ans 31: Its a Control Channel Element which consist 9 REG(Resource element
Group) and 1 REG is equivalent to 4 Resource Element so it means 1 CCE is
equivalent to 36 Resource Element. So its depend on the number of different
RNTI’s control information needed to be sent. There are two configuration
present:
1. Common search space-Maximum number of CCE present in this is 16 and carry
the information for all UE,s like SI-RNTI,P-RNTI etc.
2. UE specific search space- Having information of specific particular UE.

32. What is DCI? What is sent in DCI format 0?

Ans32: DCI is a Downlink control channel of PDCCH and its nothing but any
information carry by PDCCH channel is DCI. DCI used to carry information
about downlink and uplink details whether there is any resource or data
schedule to UE. DCI 0 format is used for getting info about the Uplink Resources
available or not.

DCI format 0 Information

33. In case of 4×4 MIMO, how many reference signals are there in an RB? How

much %age they occupied by Ref signals in this case?

Ans33: There are 4 antennas present and each one have 8 Reference signals
but the position of reference signal are different in all the antennas which is
shown below:
 MIMO 4x4 reference signal

34. What is the valid Cyclic Redundancy Check(CRC) length in bits?

Ans 34: A 15-bit cyclic redundancy check (CRC) value is calculated by the
transmitting node in the CRC field

35. Describe briefly that where and how many padding “0” bits are inserted in

code segmentation?

36. Which channel case Turbo coding is used? Which channel case Bit

Repetition Coding is used?

37. In case of Turbo Encoder, If block size is 80, what will be the number of

output bits?
Ans37: Number of output bits is 3x80-240bits

38. In case of Convolutional Encoder- If block size is 80, what will be the number

of output bits?
Ans38: Number of output bits will be-160 bits.
 39. Define Channel Quality Index(CQI)? Which is the Parameter value that

belong to Excellent condition of UE's?

Ans 39: Channel coding bits is report that send by UE to eNb for indicating the
experience getting by downlink channel. SNR and SINR are the parameter
which show the excellent condition of CQI.
CQI range in 1-15 and table is attached below:

40. Define PMCH, it's position in Frame Structure and Information Carried by

PMCH?
Ans40: Its a Physical Multicast Channel which define the physical layer
structure to carry multimedia broadcast and multicast services, it occupied the
1,2,3 OFDM symbols in a subframe over the entire bandwidth.

41. Define PRACH? What Information Carried by PRACH?

Ans41: PRACH is physical random access channel used for carry the preamble
toward eNB to request for initial set of Resources. It carried few information:
a. Prach config index
b. High speed flag
c. Zero correlation zone config
d. Prach freq offset
 42. What is RNTI? What is the types of RNTI (with their default values, if any)?
Ans 42: Radio network temporary identities used for provide the identification
to any signaling or setup, below are the identities:
a. C-RNTI- 65527
b. SI-RNTI-65535
c. P-RNTI-65534
d. T-C-RNTI-65523
e. RA-RNTI- (1+t_id +10f_id) 16 bit and range(1-60)
f. SPS-RNTI- 65523

43. What is C-RNTI? Difference between C-RNTI and T-C-RNTI?

Ans 43: Cell RNTI is the RNTI allocate to Ue when its com in a RRC connected
state whereas T-C-RNTI is allocate when UE is in RRC Idle state. Both are of 16
bits.

44. How will you get the Physical Cell ID from eNB even without reading BCH?
Ans44: It can be calculated at the time of synchronous process occurred and
read PSS and SSS because PCI=3xSSS + PSS

45. Explain why mobile cannot be connected to LTE in more than 300 km/hour

speed. What is the limit?

Ans. Mobile devices cannot be connected to LTE at speeds greater than 300
km/hour due to the physical limitations of the LTE network and the mobile
device. The LTE network uses Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
(OFDM) technology to transmit data over multiple subcarriers. However, at
higher speeds, the mobile device moves in and out of range of different cells
rapidly, which causes a phenomenon called Doppler shift that distorts the
signal and degrades the transmission quality. The Doppler shift becomes
significant at speeds over 300 km/hour, making it difficult for the network to
maintain a stable connection with the device. While enhancements such as
Carrier Aggregation and MIMO can improve performance at higher speeds,
there is still a limit to the speed at which a mobile device can be connected to
LTE.
46. In the case of 4 antennas with 4x4 MIMO, how many maximum layers can be

configured?
Ans. In 4x4 MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) configuration with 4
antennas, the maximum number of layers that can be configured is 4. Each
layer is a separate data stream that is transmitted and received independently
on each antenna, resulting in a total of 4 streams in a 4x4 MIMO configuration.
Each stream is modulated and demodulated separately, allowing for a higher
data throughput and better spectral efficiency. The number of layers that can
be configured in a MIMO system depends on the number of antennas and the
number of streams that can be transmitted and received simultaneously. The
more antennas and streams, the higher the capacity and performance of the
system.

47. Define CFI, UCI, HI in LTE?

Ans. In LTE (Long-Term Evolution), CFI, UCI, and HI are control channels used
for transmitting control information between the base station and the mobile
device.
CFI (Control Format Indicator): is a downlink control channel that carries
information about the number of OFDM symbols used for transmitting control
information on the Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH).
UCI (Uplink Control Information): is an uplink control channel that is used to
transmit control information from the mobile device to the base station. It is
used for sending feedback information, scheduling requests, and
acknowledgement of received data.
HI (Hybrid ARQ Indicator): is a downlink control channel used to carry
information about the status of the Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ)
process. It informs the mobile device whether the received data is error-free or
needs retransmission.
In summary, CFI, UCI, and HI are important control channels in LTE that
facilitate the transmission of control information between the base station and
the mobile device.

48. Describe in detail about Preamble in LTE and which Layer initiate Preamble

and why?
Ans. In LTE (Long-Term Evolution), a preamble is a special sequence of symbols
used by the mobile device to synchronize with the base station and request
access to the network. It is a part of the Random Access Procedure, which is
used by the mobile device to initiate a connection with the network.
The preamble is generated by the Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH)
module in the Physical Layer of the mobile device. It is then transmitted over
the air to the base station. The base station uses the preamble to synchronize
with the mobile device and allocate resources for further communication.

The preamble is initiated by the Medium Access Control (MAC) Layer in the
mobile device when it needs to transmit data to the network. The MAC Layer
determines the size of the data to be transmitted and selects a suitable
preamble format based on the size of the data.
The use of preamble in LTE ensures that the mobile device can access the
network efficiently and with minimal delay. It allows multiple mobile devices to
access the network simultaneously without causing interference. The
preamble-based Random Access Procedure is a key feature of the LTE system,
providing efficient access to the network and enabling high-speed data
transfer.

49. How many different Preamble id, Preamble Format, Zero co-relation Zone,

Root Sequence, Frequency Offset are present and how they all are play an

important role to generate Preamble id?

Ans. Preamble Format: There are 5 different Preamble Formats are present 0-
4, TS 36.321 Table 7.6-1 each with a different length and structure.
Zero Correlation Zone (ZCZ): The ZCZ is a set of subcarriers where the
preamble signal has zero correlation with other preambles. There are four
different ZCZ configurations, each with a different number of subcarriers.
Root Sequence: The Root Sequence is a sequence of complex numbers that
determine the phase of the preamble signal. There are 839 different Root
Sequences available for use in LTE.
Frequency Offset: The Frequency Offset is the difference in frequency between
the mobile device and the base station. It can be compensated for by adding a
cyclic shift to the preamble signal.