US 12,143,212 B1
Physical layer preamble for wireless local area networks
B Hari Ram, Chennai (IN); Vijay Ahirwar, Pune (IN); Sri Varsha Rottela, Visakhapatnam (IN); Hongyuan Zhang, Fremont, CA (US); Sudhir Srinivasa, Los Gatos, CA (US); and Nilesh Khude, Pune (IN)
Assigned to Marvell Asia Pte Ltd, Singapore (SG)
Filed by Marvell Asia Pte Ltd, Singapore (SG)
Filed on Nov. 20, 2023, as Appl. No. 18/514,606.
Application 18/514,606 is a continuation of application No. 17/848,373, filed on Jun. 23, 2022, granted, now 11,824,652.
Application 17/848,373 is a continuation of application No. 16/703,352, filed on Dec. 4, 2019, granted, now 11,374,683, issued on Jun. 28, 2022.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/775,232, filed on Dec. 4, 2018.
Int. Cl. H04L 1/00 (2006.01); H04L 1/12 (2006.01); H04L 5/00 (2006.01)
CPC H04L 1/003 (2013.01) [H04L 1/0003 (2013.01); H04L 1/0061 (2013.01); H04L 5/0053 (2013.01)] 18 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method for communicating in a wireless communication network, the method comprising:
receiving, at a communication device, a physical layer (PHY) data unit having a PHY preamble, the PHY preamble including:
a legacy portion having a plurality of legacy training fields and a legacy signal field that indicates a duration of the PHY data unit, and
a non-legacy portion of the PHY preamble having a non-legacy signal field, and one or more non-legacy training fields,
wherein the non-legacy signal field includes a multi-bit signal field header and other subfields that follow the multi-bit signal field header, the multi-bit signal field header occupying a first set of consecutive bits in a beginning portion of the non-legacy signal field so that no other bits of the non-legacy signal field precede the multi-bit signal field header,
wherein a plurality of available values of the multi-bit signal field header includes i) at least one available value corresponding to a wireless communication protocol, and ii) multiple other available values reserved for at least one of i) at least one future version of the wireless communication protocol, and ii) at least one future wireless communication protocol, and
wherein the multi-bit signal field header indicates a field format of the other subfields of the non-legacy signal field that follow the multi-bit signal field header;
processing, at the communication device, the first set of consecutive bits in the beginning portion of the non-legacy signal field to determine a value of the multi-bit signal field header from among the plurality of available values for the multi-bit signal field header;
using, at the communication device, the value of the multi-bit signal field header to determine the field format of the other subfields of the non-legacy signal field that follow the multi-bit signal field header;
using, at the communication device, the field format to process the other subfields of the non-legacy signal field that follow the multi-bit signal field header to determine PHY information regarding the PHY data unit; and
using, at the communication device, the PHY information to process the PHY data unit.