A physical downlink control channel transmission method is provided, and the method is used by a wireless network device to send N signal sets, where each signal set is used to transmit control information of one or more terminals, a signal in the signal set includes a PDCCH or a PDCCH and a PCFICH. The method includes: sending, by the wireless network device, each signal set to the terminal on a resource that can be occupied by the signal set, where the wireless network device performs sending processing on each signal set, and the sending processing includes at least one of multiplexing, scrambling, modulation, interleaving, or resource mapping. Interference between signal sets may be canceled, PCFICH and PDCCH transmission reliability may be improved, and the terminal receives the PCFICH and the PDCCH on a resource of a received signal set, to reduce complexity of detecting a signal by the terminal.