May 19, 2010 doc.:IEEE 802.

11-10/0064r5

VHT Frame Padding

Date: 2010-05-19
Authors:

Name Company Address Phone email

Yong Liu Marvell 5488 Marvell Lane, Santa Clara, 1-408-222-8412 yongliu@marvell.com
CA 95054, USA
Sudhir Srinivasa Marvell 5488 Marvell Lane, Santa Clara, sudhirs@marvell.com
CA 95054, USA
Robert Stacey Intel 2111 NE 25th Ave robert.j.stacey@intel.com
Hillsboro, OR 97124, USA
Matthew Fischer Broadcom 190 Mathilda Place, Sunnyvale, CA mfischer@broadcom.com
94086, USA
QRC224J, 5665 Morehouse Dr. hsampath@qualcomm.com
Hemanth Sampath Qualcomm
San Diego, CA 92121-1714, USA
James Cho Atheros 5480 Great America Parkway, James.Cho@atheros.com
Santa Clara, CA 95054, USA
Youngsoo Kim Samsung Mt. 14-1 Nongseo-Ri, Giheung- kimyoungsoo@samsung.com
Electronics Eup,
Yongin-Si, Gyeonggi-Do, Korea
449-712

Submission Slide 1 Yong Liu, Marvell

May 19, 2010 doc.:IEEE 802.11-10/0064r5

Changes from r4

• Explain why PHY padding bits are added before tail bits
• Add a straw poll on adding PHY padding bits before tail
bits for VHT frames

Submission Slide 2 Yong Liu, Marvell

May 19, 2010 doc.:IEEE 802.11-10/0064r5

Outlines

• 802.11n (HT) frame padding

• VHT frame padding
• 802.11n (HT) A-MPDU
• VHT A-MPDU
• Early End-of-Frame indication
• Conclusions

Submission Slide 3 Yong Liu, Marvell

 May 19, 2010 doc.:IEEE 802.11-10/0064r5

802.11n (HT) frame padding

L-SIG Duration (Length, Rate)

HT-SIG Length (# of octets)

Last Symbol

PHY
L-TFs L-SIG HT-SIGs HT-TFs Service MPDU / A-MPDU Tail
Pad

• L-SIG length/rate indicate the end of the PPDU

• A length field (16 bits) is included in HT-SIGs to indicate the end of PSDU
• Tail bits and PHY Pad are appended to fill in the last symbol

Submission Slide 4 Yong Liu, Marvell

May 19, 2010 doc.:IEEE 802.11-10/0064r5

VHT frame padding - motivations

• Bits in VHT-SIG are very precious resource to signal

important system parameters

• Length field and rate field in L-SIG already provide

sufficient information to signal the duration of a VHT
frame (11-10-0534-00-00ac-Duration-in-L-SIG)

• No need to signal PPDU length or duration again in VHT

signal fields
– Simplify design and save processing power

Submission Slide 5 Yong Liu, Marvell

May 19, 2010 doc.:IEEE 802.11-10/0064r5

VHT frame padding

PPDU Duration (# of symbols)

Last Symbol
PHY
Service VHT A-MPDU Tail
Pad
VHT- PHY
L-TFs L-SIG VHT-SIG A VHT-TFs Service VHT A-MPDU Tail
SIG B Pad
PHY
Service VHT A-MPDU Tail
Pad

0-3 MPDU MPDU 0-3 Less than

octets Length = 0 Length = 0 octets 8-bit
Qword Final Last byte
A-MPDU A-MPDU A-MPDU Null Null
MAC MAC boundary
subframe 1 subframe 2 subframe n subframe subframe
Pad Pad

• L-SIG length and rate indicate PPDU duration (number of symbols)

– No per user length (number of octets) indication in preamble
• MAC provides an A-MPDU that fills the frame to the last byte for each per-user stream
• Same preamble structure is used for both SU and MU VHT frames
– Require that A-MPDU always be used with both SU and MU VHT frames
• PHY provides 0-7 bits of padding
• PHY padding bits are added before tail bits

Submission Slide 6 Yong Liu, Marvell

May 19, 2010 doc.:IEEE 802.11-10/0064r5

802.11n (HT) A-MPDU

A-MPDU subframe 1 A-MPDU subframe 2 A-MPDU subframe n

• Except when it is the last A-MPDU subframe in an A-MPDU, padding octets

are appended to make each A-MPDU subframe a multiple of 4 octets in length.
• Any subframe may be preceded by one or more zero-length delimiters to meet
the minimum MPDU Start Spacing requirement, for example

Submission Slide 7 Yong Liu, Marvell

 May 19, 2010 doc.:IEEE 802.11-10/0064r5

VHT A-MPDU
MAC Pad

QWord Final
A-MPDU A-MPDU A-MPDU Null Null
MAC MAC
subframe 1 subframe 2 subframe n subframe subframe
Pad Pad
0-3 0-3
octets octets

MPDU Delimiter
Reserved CRC
Length = 0 Signature

MPDU Delimiter
Octets: 4

• VHT A-MPDU subframes have the same structure as the subframes of an 802.11n A-MPDU
• The QWord MAC Pad (0-3 octets) is added to reach the next 32-bit boundary of MAC octets, if such
octets fit into the last PHY symbol (Note that normally, the LAST subframe is NOT padded)
• Zero or more Null subframes and a Final MAC Pad (0-3 octets) are appended to extend the A-MPDU to
the last octet of the last symbol of a VHT frame
– Null subframes are absent if last PHY symbol is full with 0-3 octets of Final MAC Pad after the QWord MAC Pad

Submission Slide 8 Yong Liu, Marvell

May 19, 2010 doc.:IEEE 802.11-10/0064r5

Early EOF indication

PPDU Duration (# of symbols)

Last Symbol
PHY
Service VHT A-MPDU Tail
Pad
VHT- PHY
L-TFs L-SIG VHT-SIG A VHT-TFs Service VHT A-MPDU MAC Pad Tail
SIG B Pad
PHY
Service VHT A-MPDU MAC Pad Tail
Pad

0-3 MPDU MPDU 0-3 Less than

octets Length = 0 Length = 0 octets 8-bit
Qword Null Null Final Last byte
A-MPDU A-MPDU A-MPDU
MAC subframe subframe MAC boundary
subframe 1 subframe 2 subframe n
Pad (EOF) (EOF) Pad

When RX MAC detects

MPDU Delimiter
Reserved EOF
length = 0
CRC
Signature
the EOF padding
delimiter, it can inform RX
MPDU Delimiter PHY to stop receiving
Octets: 4

• The Null subframes appended to the end of a VHT A-MPDU can be special Padding Delimiters each with an
EOF flag
• When RX MAC detects the EOF Padding Delimiter, it may inform RX PHY to stop receiving to conserve
power

Submission Slide 9 Yong Liu, Marvell

May 19, 2010 doc.:IEEE 802.11-10/0064r5

PHY pad before tail bits

Add Tail, Encoding &

AMPDU Puncturing
(with MAC pad)

Add 0-7 Encoder Stream

Scrambler
PHY padding bits Parser Parser

• With multiple encoders there is no need to separately calculate the number of

PHY padding bits to be added at each encoder, i.e., number of padding bits can
be calculated once and added before the encoder parser.

Submission Slide 10 Yong Liu, Marvell

May 19, 2010 doc.:IEEE 802.11-10/0064r5

Conclusions
• L-SIG length and rate indicate PPDU duration (number of symbols)
– No per user length (number of octets) indication in preamble

• Zero or more Null subframes and a Final MAC Pad can be appended to
a VHT A-MPDU to extend the A-MPDU to the last byte of the VHT
frame
• In order to maintain the same preamble structure for both SU and MU
frames, all VHT frames use A-MPDU structure
• The Null subframes appended to the A-MPDU can include an EOF
indication in the delimiter so that the receiver knows it can stop receive
processing to conserve power
• PHY padding bits are added before tail bits

Submission Slide 11 Yong Liu, Marvell

May 19, 2010 doc.:IEEE 802.11-10/0064r5

Reference

• 11-10-0534-00-00ac-Duration-in-L-SIG.ppt
• 11-10-0070-02-00ac-802-11ac-preamble.ppt
• 11-10-0548-00-00ac-80MHz Transmission Flow.ppt

Submission Slide 12 Yong Liu, Marvell

May 19, 2010 doc.:IEEE 802.11-10/0064r5

Straw Poll 1

• Should the spec framework document (09/992) be

updated to include the following change?
– 3.2.x The Data Field
• R3.2.x.A: When BCC encoding is used, the Data field shall consist of
the 16-bit SERVICE field, the PSDU, the pad bits and the tail bits, in
that order.

– Yes:
– No:
– Abstain:

Submission Slide 13 Yong Liu, Marvell

May 19, 2010 doc.:IEEE 802.11-10/0064r5

Straw Poll 2

• Should the spec framework document (09/992) be

updated to include the changes shown on the following
two slides of this presentation?
• Yes:
• No:
• Abstain:

Submission Slide 14 Yong Liu, Marvell

May 19, 2010 doc.:IEEE 802.11-10/0064r5

Spec framework changes (1)

Add a section on A-MPDU format under Frame Formats:

6.3 Frame formats
6.3.1 A-MPDU format
The VHT A-MPDU format is an extension of the 802.11n A-MPDU
as shown in Figure YY. The extension (shaded in the figure)
consists of zero or more delimiters with MPDU length zero and a
possible final MAC Pad of less than 4 octets. The A-MPDU of a
VHT PPDU fills the available octets in the payload.

A-MPDU A-MPDU A-MPDU A-MPDU A-MPDU MAC

... ...
subframe 1 subframe 2 subframe n null subframe null subframe Pad
Octets: variable variable variable 4 4 0-3

Figure YY – A-MPDU format for VHT PPHU

Submission Slide 15 Yong Liu, Marvell

May 19, 2010 doc.:IEEE 802.11-10/0064r5

Spec framework changes (2)

Add a requirement to the power saving section:

6.1 Power saving
R6.1.A: The delimiters with MPDU length zero that pad through the
end of the frame shall include an indication that no additional
MPDUs are present in the frame. This would allow the receiver to
stop receive processing to conserve power.

Submission Slide 16 Yong Liu, Marvell