 control channels, the CRC bits are distributed among information bits considering the benefits of using the CRC bits for decoding and also to support early termination, which is considered essential due to the number of blind decodes associated with the DL control. To distribute the CRC bits inside the information bits, 5G uses a simple interleaving mechanism. The interleaver itself is defined by using the CRC generator matrix, where the CRC generator matrix has the bottom-to-top unidirectional growth property of CRC (with the increase in information block size). Using this property of the CRC generator matrix, a single interleaving pattern for different block sizes is defined in 5G. Figure 6.51 shows a toy example of the principle used here, where P1-P4 are CRC bits and 1-12 are information bits, the distribution of CRC bits is accomplished by using a single interleaver for all information block sizes, and a simple nulling operation is used to derive the interleaved block sizes for smaller block size (10 bits) with the corresponding CRC bits. In 5G, a 164-bit long interleaver is used with this principle to support CRC interleaving. In the distributed CRC polar code used in DL control channels, 8 CRC bits are dis- tributed, and 16 bits are appended at the end. The benefits of the distributed CRC polar code are as follows: Early termination without impacting FAR performance. This saves UE energy con- sumption and reduces decoding latency. Flexibility of using the same code for different purposes. CRC distribution provides the capability of different decoding choices such as using distributed bits when pruning the lists, selecting fewer or more bits for error correction versus detec- tion depending on the service requirement, and using the traditional CRC-aided (CA)-polar coding scheme. Reduction in the FAR. The rate at which incorrectly received messages are decoded as correct, that is, the FAR, is reduced to obtain targets low as 2-21 by careful selection of the distribution pattern. For the UL control channel, 