METHODS FOR REDUCING COMPLEXITY WITH COUNTING CONTROL CHANNEL CANDIDATES AND CONTROL CHANNEL ELEMENTS

Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described. For instance, a user equipment (UE) may receive a configuration of a set of search space sets for a downlink control channel. The UE may determine a quantity of downlink control channel units (e.g., downlink control channel elements, downlink control channel candidates) for monitoring over the set of search space sets, where downlink control channel units that overlap may be counted separately. For instance, the downlink control channel units may overlap in time and frequency and/or may have a same associated payload size and associated set of control channel elements. The UE may monitor the downlink control channel according to a subset of the set of search space sets, where the subset excludes one or more of the set of search space sets based on the quantity of downlink control channel units satisfying a threshold.