  In this paper a MIMO quasi static block fading channel with finite N-ary
delay-free, noise-free feedback is considered. The transmitter uses a set of N
Space-Time Block Codes (STBCs), one corresponding to each of the N possible
feedback values, to encode and transmit information. The feedback function used
at the receiver and the N component STBCs used at the transmitter together
constitute a Finite Feedback Scheme (FFS). Although a number of FFSs are
available in the literature that provably achieve full-diversity, there is no
known universal criterion to determine whether a given arbitrary FFS achieves
full-diversity or not. Further, all known full-diversity FFSs for T<N_t where
N_t is the number of transmit antennas, have rate at the most 1. In this paper
a universal necessary condition for any FFS to achieve full-diversity is given,
using which the notion of Feedback-Transmission duration optimal (FT-Optimal)
FFSs - schemes that use minimum amount of feedback N given the transmission
duration T, and minimum transmission duration given the amount of feedback to
achieve full-diversity - is introduced. When there is no feedback (N=1) an
FT-optimal scheme consists of a single STBC with T=N_t, and the universal
necessary condition reduces to the well known necessary and sufficient
condition for an STBC to achieve full-diversity: every non-zero codeword
difference matrix of the STBC must be of rank N_t. Also, a sufficient condition
for full-diversity is given for the FFSs in which the component STBC with the
largest minimum Euclidean distance is chosen. Using this sufficient condition
full-rate (rate N_t) full-diversity FT-Optimal schemes are constructed for all
(N_t,T,N) with NT=N_t. These are the first full-rate full-diversity FFSs
reported in the literature for T<N_t. Simulation results show that the new
schemes have the best error performance among all known FFSs.
