Method And Apparatus For Retransmission Processing in a Communication Receiver

A method of retransmission processing in a communication receiver comprising:

• obtaining second soft bits by demodulating a second data block received as a retransmission of an earlier-received first data block that was unsuccessfully decoded by the receiver;
• evaluating whether the first data block satisfies a block quality target;
• if the first data block satisfies the block quality target, using a first type of soft combining to obtain combined demodulation results for decoding, said first type of soft combining including forming the combined demodulation results by combining the second soft bits with regenerated soft bits that were obtained by transforming first hard bits into said regenerated soft bits, wherein the first hard bits comprise decoding results obtained by decoding first soft bits that were obtained by demodulating the first data block;
• if the first data block does not satisfy the block quality target, using a second type of soft combining to obtain the combined demodulation results, said second type of soft combining including forming the combined demodulation results without use of the regenerated soft bits;
• and
• decoding the combined demodulation results in an attempt to correctly recover information bits encoded in the first and second data blocks.

A communication receiver configured to perform retransmission processing and comprising one or more processing circuits configured to:

• obtain second soft bits by demodulating a second data block received as a retransmission of an earlier-received first data block that was unsuccessfully decoded by the receiver;
• evaluate whether the first data block satisfies a block quality target;
• if the first data block meets the block quality target, use a first type of soft combining to obtain combined demodulation results for decoding, said first type of soft combining including forming the combined demodulation results by combining the second soft bits with regenerated soft bits that were obtained by transforming first hard bits into said regenerated soft bits, wherein the first hard bits comprise decoding results obtained by decoding first soft bits that were obtained by demodulating the first data block;
• if the first data block does not satisfy the block quality target, use a second type of soft combining to obtain the combined demodulation results, said second type of soft combining including forming the combined demodulation results without use of the regenerated soft bits;
• and
• decode the combined demodulation results in an attempt to correctly recover information bits encoded in the first and second data blocks.

A wireless communication apparatus comprising a communication receiver configured to perform retransmission processing and comprising one or more processing circuits configured to:

• obtain second soft bits by demodulating a second data block received as a retransmission of an earlier-received first data block that was unsuccessfully decoded by the receiver;
• evaluate whether the first data block satisfies a block quality target;
• if the first data block meets the block quality target, use a first type of soft combining to obtain combined demodulation results for decoding, said first type of soft combining including forming the combined demodulation results by combining the second soft bits with regenerated soft bits that were obtained by transforming first hard bits into said regenerated soft bits, wherein the first hard bits comprise decoding results obtained by decoding first soft bits that were obtained by demodulating the first data block;
• if the first data block does not satisfy the block quality target, use a second type of soft combining to obtain the combined demodulation results, said second type of soft combining including forming the combined demodulation results without use of the regenerated soft bits;
• and
• decode the combined demodulation results in an attempt to correctly recover information bits encoded in the first and second data blocks.