Wireless communication method supporting HARQ, user equipment, and base station

A terminal device, comprising:

• a receiver,
• a transmitter,
• a memory, and
• a processor, coupled with the receiver, the transmitter, and the memory, wherein
• the receiver is configured to receive, from a base station, a system information block message that includes first downlink hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process quantity indication information, wherein the terminal device is configured to communicate via at least two aggregated carriers comprising a combination of at least one frequency division duplex (FDD) carrier and at least one time division duplex (TDD) carrier or a combination of at least two TDD carriers having different sub-frame configurations, the first downlink HARQ process quantity indication information indicates first sub-frame configuration information of a secondary component carrier of the at least two aggregated carriers;
• the receiver is further configured to receive, from the base station through signaling dedicated to the terminal device, second downlink HARQ process quantity indication information of the secondary component carrier;
• the processor is configured to:
• determine, for the secondary component carrier, a HARQ process quantity according to the second downlink HARQ process quantity indication information received through the signaling dedicated to the terminal device, rather than according to first HARQ process quantity indication information received by the system information block message, wherein a HARQ timing relationship of the secondary component carrier is determined based on the second downlink HARQ process quantity indication information but is not defined by the sub-frame configuration information, and the HARQ process quantity is the maximum number of downlink HARQ processes;
• obtain a size of an HARQ soft buffer according to the maximum number of downlink HARQ processes;
• and
• process, based on the size of the HARQ soft buffer, data that is received on the carrier from the base station.

An apparatus in a terminal device, comprising:

• a processor coupled with a non-transitory storage medium storing executable instructions;
• wherein the executable instructions, when executed by the processor, cause the apparatus to:
• decode first downlink hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process quantity indication information from a system information block message, wherein the terminal device is configured to communicate via at least two aggregated carriers comprising a combination of at least one frequency division duplex (FDD) carrier and at least one time division duplex (TDD) carrier or a combination of at least two TDD carriers having different sub-frame configurations, the first downlink HARQ process quantity indication information is first sub-frame configuration information of a secondary component carrier of the at least two aggregated carriers;
• decode second downlink HARQ process quantity indication information of the secondary component carrier from signaling dedicated to a terminal device;
• determine, for the secondary component carrier, a HARQ process quantity according to the second downlink HARQ process quantity indication information received through the signaling dedicated to the terminal device, rather than according to first HARQ process quantity indication information received by the system information block message, wherein a used HARQ timing relationship of the carrier is determined based on the second downlink HARQ process quantity indication information, but is not a HARQ timing relationship defined by the sub-frame configuration information of the secondary component carrier in the system information block message, and the HARQ process quantity is the maximum number of downlink HARQ processes;
• obtain a size of an HARQ soft buffer according to the maximum number of downlink HARQ processes;
• and
• process, based on the size of the HARQ soft buffer, data that is received on the carrier from the base station.