Methods and apparatus for determining the starting points of redundancy version transmissions in a circular rate matching operation. At least one block of information bits to be transmitted are encoded to generate a plurality of coded bits, which are then segmented into a plurality of sub-blocks of coded bits. Each of the sub-blocks of coded bits is interleaved by using a certain interleaver. The interleaved coded bits of the plurality of sub-blocks are collected and filled into a circular buffer having a plurality of redundancy versions in the circular buffer, with each redundancy version corresponding to a starting bit index in the circular buffer. For each transmission, a subset of bits are selected from the circular buffer by selecting a redundancy version from among the plurality of redundancy version. The selected subset of bits are modulated by using a certain modulation scheme, and are transmitted via at least one antenna. The redundancy versions of the circular being determined such that in at least one pair of redundancy versions, the number of bits between the starting point of a first redundancy version and the starting point of a second redundancy version is not divisible by at least one modulation order.