A method of wireless communication by a user equipment (UE) includes receiving, from a base station, a receive chain switching configuration for a multi-carrier environment. The UE also receives a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) on one or more carriers of the multi-carrier environment with multiple receive chains, in accordance with the receive chain switching configuration. The UE decodes downlink control information (DCI) from the PDCCH for physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) scheduling across multiple carriers in the multi-carrier environment. The UE performs receive chain switching based on the PDSCH scheduling from the decoded DCI and the receive chain switching configuration.