Development of a Prototype CMOS 0.18 μm Low-Noise Amplifier Chip for the Receiving Path of the NB-IoT system

— When designing a narrow band Internet of things (NB-IoT) system, the main tasks are to determine the boundary parameters of the system nodes and check its performance under various conditions. Automatic design tools make it possible to achieve reliable results even at the modeling stage, which helps to accelerate the development and implementation of new technologies in the microelectronic industry, including the industrial Internet of things. This paper presents aspects of designing an NB-IoT system. Analytical calculations of the receiving path are carried out using a debugging system in the context of radio wave propagation in an enclosed space in accordance with the specifications of the 5G 3GPP standard. Based on the results of analytical calculations on signal propagation in a closed space for a prototype of a subscriber device, general requirements for the development of an active node of a low-noise amplifier (LNA) of the receiving path of an NB-IoT transceiver are formulated. Based on the requirements and design standards of the 180-nm CMOS process, a prototype of an LNA is developed for operation as part of an NB-IoT transceiver of a subscriber terminal. The prototype low noise amplifier is designed in three stages and has a noise figure of 1.7 dB in the n7 frequency range with a gain of 25 dB. Digital CMOS libraries are adapted to unify and reduce the cost of the development process of analog nodes of the transceiver path, in this case an LNA.