Qmax Systems designs the analog and mixed-signal hardware that turns physical phenomena into trustworthy data — precision front ends, high-resolution data acquisition, bio-signal chains, and measurement circuits that hold their accuracy in electrically hostile places. Our engineers take a system from noise budget and signal-chain architecture through schematic design, analog PCB layout, isolation and protection, bring-up and noise characterization, to a calibrated production release.
The hard part of analog design is rarely the amplifier. It is everything around it: where the return currents flow, what the switching regulator couples into the reference, how the layout behaves at the frequencies nobody specified. We treat noise as something to be located and stopped at its source, not something to be filtered downstream or corrected in software after the fact.
That discipline scales in both directions. A hearing aid and a kilowatt-class RF power supply are the same problem at different amplitudes — know where the noise comes from, keep it out of the measurement, and leave margin. Every program is owned by senior engineers from architecture through manufacturing handover, and you own 100% of the resulting intellectual property at every milestone.
Signal-chain architecture with target SNR, dynamic range and drift defined up front
Front-end topology, conditioning, conversion and voltage reference design
Coupling paths, return currents, PSRR and shielding strategy resolved before layout
Analog/digital partitioning, moat-and-bridge structures, guarding and star grounding
Galvanic isolation, input protection, leakage current and creepage control
Measured noise floor, SNR, SFDR, linearity and thermal drift
EMI/EMC immunity and medical electrical safety addressed during design
Calibration procedure, test jigs and a DFM, DFA and DFT release package
Converting microvolt and microampere signals from real transducers into data you can trust, without losing fidelity on the way to the converter.
Multi-channel acquisition platforms that capture every channel at once, with the timing discipline that makes the samples comparable.
Bio-potential, acoustic and optical front ends for diagnostic and monitoring devices, designed under an ISO 13485 quality system.
Measurement circuits that keep their accuracy while sitting inside the switching, the current and the fields that would normally destroy them.
Battery-operated signal chains where measurement accuracy and multi-week runtime have to coexist rather than trade off.
Measurement-grade hardware for research, aerospace and industrial test, where the specification is the noise floor itself.
| Domain | Silicon | Signal Chain & Interfaces |
|---|---|---|
| Precision Amplification | Analog Devices, Texas Instruments, Maxim | Instrumentation and charge amplifiers, zero-drift op-amps, programmable-gain stages, active filtering |
| Data Conversion | Texas Instruments ADS family, Analog Devices | 16- to 24-bit SAR and delta-sigma ADCs, simultaneous-sampling arrays, high-speed DACs, JESD204B/C and LVDS |
| Bio-Signal & Acoustic | Analog Devices, Texas Instruments, Maxim, Silicon Labs EFM32 | ECG, EMG, PPG and bio-impedance front ends, MEMS microphones, accelerometers |
| Processing & Real-Time DSP | NXP i.MX, ST, Nordic; AMD Xilinx and Intel Altera FPGAs | Multi-core Linux and Cortex-M acquisition, FPGA filtering, FFT and decimation at the edge |
| Isolation & Protection | Analog Devices, Texas Instruments, Broadcom | Digital and amplifier isolation, opto-isolated outputs, TVS and clamp networks on measurement inputs |
| Precision Power for Analog | Analog Devices, Texas Instruments, Infineon | LDO post-regulation, split-rail generation, low-noise voltage references, PSRR-driven rail design |
A 32-channel, 16-bit simultaneous-sampling data acquisition board that monitors piezoelectric sensors bonded to aircraft structures, capturing all channels in parallel at 30 KSPS with 90 dB SNR. A hardware trigger detects impacts and buffers capture, while a quad-core NXP i.MX6 running Linux streams data over Gigabit Ethernet.
View case studyThis is a capacitive splice detection board for industrial web/material inspection, using a capacitive sense plate feeding a bridge filter, voltage follower, differential amplifier and comparator stage to detect splices in real time. Events are digitally processed and delivered through an opto-isolator to an isolated output for downstream control.
This is a compact, coin-sized wearable lung sound recorder that captures audio through dual MEMS microphones and motion data through an onboard accelerometer, processed by an EFM32 microcontroller and logged locally to an SD card. Powered by a battery-fed LDO regulator, it's accessed via USB-C, with UART debug and JTAG interfaces for diagnostics.
Qmax Systems builds for regulated industries, designing to stringent global standards so hardware holds up under medical, aerospace, and industrial certification.
Standards references: IEC, JEDEC (JESD204B/C), IPC.
Our first response to a noise problem is not a filter, and not a correction in software. It is to find where the noise is generated and contain it there — through domain partitioning, return-path control, shielding and grounding topology. Filtering and digital processing then recover what remains, rather than compensating for what should never have coupled in.
In analog and mixed-signal work the layout is part of the circuit, not a drawing of it. Our PCB designers have spent close to four decades on analog and mixed-signal boards, and the hardware designer and the layout designer work the same board together rather than in sequence — because a correct schematic laid out badly does not measure.
We design picofarad-level capacitance sensing and microampere-level current measurement immediately adjacent to high-power switching drivers. We have placed forward and reflected power sensing, working from a small reference signal, alongside kilowatt-class RF transmitters, and current sensing in the middle of converters switching thousands of amperes.
Filter selection, noise containment, isolation, shielding, suppression at source and immunity hardening are treated as distinct disciplines, each chosen against a measured noise floor and a target dynamic range — not applied as a default set and hoped over.
The same discipline scales in both directions. Our work runs from high-end scientific instruments and aerospace measurement systems through to medical sensors, hearing aids and wearables — and the reason one team can cover that range is that the underlying problem does not change with the amplitude.
Analog design punishes small oversights, and they are expensive to find late. Qmax operates ISO 9001 and ISO 13485 certified quality systems, with defined internal process steps and review gates built specifically to catch mistakes before a design reaches fabrication.
A one-hour session with a Qmax Systems Senior Hardware Architect. Bring a noise floor you cannot reach, a signal chain that drifts, or a front end that has to sit next to something loud. Practical and engineering-driven — no sales pitch. We can sign an NDA beforehand.
