a method and apparatus are used to create rlc pdus in advance of the e - tfc selection for the mac pdu that will include this or these rlc pdu . the apparatus may be configured to pre - generate rlc pdus for transmission in a later tti . this approach avoids the large peak processing requirement due to the tight delay constraint if any rlc pdu to be included into a mac pdu had to be created after the determination of the size of this mac pdu , i . e . after e - tfc selection . the method and apparatus maintain an approximate match between the size of an rlc pdu and the size of the mac pdu it is included into . maintaining this approximate match ensures that the rlc pdu error rate due to harq residual errors remains low . this approach may be designed as “ semi - radio aware ” or “ radio - aware with delay ”.