Efficient transmission of control and data channels

An apparatus, comprising:

• one or more memories;
• and
• one or more processors being configured to, individually or collectively, based at least in part on information stored in the one or more memories:
• modulate a plurality of coded bits of a control channel using a first modulation scheme to obtain a plurality of control channel symbols;
• spread the plurality of control channel symbols using a first spreading code to obtain a spread plurality of control channel symbols;
• modulate a plurality of coded bits of a data channel using a second modulation scheme to obtain a plurality of data channel symbols;
• spread the plurality of data channel symbols using a second spreading code to obtain a spread plurality of data channel symbols;
• utilize different lengths of the first spreading code and the second spreading code to distinguish the control channel associated with the first spreading code from the data channel associated with the second spreading code;
• multiplex the spread plurality of control channel symbols with the spread plurality of data channel symbols to obtain a multiplexed combination of the control channel and the data channel;
• and
• transmit the multiplexed combination of the control channel and the data channel, the multiplexed combination mapped to at least one resource element in a time-frequency resource grid.