A method for a user equipment (UE) to receive physical downlink control channels (PDCCHs) with a first sub-carrier spacing (SCS) includes receiving a bitmap indicating symbols of a slot that are first symbols of control resource sets (CORESETs) for PDCCH receptions, determining, based on the bitmap, a first number of symbols that is a smallest number of symbols in between a first symbol of PDCCH receptions in first CORESETs and a first symbol of PDCCH receptions in second CORESETs, determining, based on the first number of symbols and the SCS, a first maximum number of non-overlapping control channel elements (CCEs), and receiving the PDCCHs with the first SCS according to the first maximum number of non-overlapping CCEs.