Certain aspects of the present disclosure relate to methods and apparatus for short uplink burst designs. In some cases, one sequence, from a plurality of sequences, may be transmitted in multiple tones of at least one short burst symbol conveying at least one bit of information. The plurality of sequences may have the same values at a first set of common tone locations for demodulation reference signals (DMRS) and groups of sequences from the plurality of sequences may be identified, each sequence in a group having a second set of common tone locations for DMRS.