RF and antenna development is one of the most technically challenging areas in electronics—and it's a skillset that's becoming increasingly rare. As more seasoned engineers retire, the depth of RF expertise is shrinking, even as demand grows across the IoT, automotive, and industrial sectors. That’s where Quarterwave comes in. With over 40 years of combined experience between its two co-founders, the company is filling this gap with highly specialized antenna design services.

At the forefront of Ultra-Wideband (UWB) technology, Quarterwave is developing advanced solutions for IoT applications. Their latest innovation is a cost-effective antenna that uses the existing PCB as the radiating element, eliminating the need for discrete antenna components. Designed in Altium Designer, their prototypes have already demonstrated over 80% efficiency across the 5 to 10 GHz frequency range.

Solving Signal Integrity Challenges in Multi-Radio Designs 

One of the core challenges Quarterwave faced in their UWB design was creating communication modules that integrated multiple radios on the same PCB. These multi-radio environments are inherently prone to signal integrity issues, such as trace coupling, crosstalk, unintended loops that can create EMI problems, and impedance mismatches. Addressing these risks early in the design phase is critical to ensure performance and reliability. 

Instead of using an online calculator to determine the impedance of each trace in their PCB, Altium Designer enabled Quarterwave to incorporate PCB trace impedance calculations as part of their layer stackup design process. The integrated field solver in Altium Designer's Layer Stack Manager also helped the team manage impedance throughout their board. 

With Signal Integrity Analysis in Altium Designer, the team was also able to analyze the signal integrity performance of their PCB from either the schematic or PCB editor. This allowed Quarterwave to evaluate net screening results against predefined tests, perform reflection and crosstalk analysis on selected nets, and display and manipulate waveforms in a SimData editor.

Seamless Collaboration Through a Shared Design System

Quarterwave often works closely with customers who are also using Altium, and early on they recognized that translating files between different PCB design tools created unnecessary friction. Every file conversion introduced the risk of errors, misinterpretations, and delays—challenges that were especially problematic when working on high-frequency RF designs that require precision. 

By choosing Altium Designer, Quarterwave streamlined their workflow and collaborated with customers more effectively. Instead of wasting time on file conversions or double-checking translated layouts, the team could directly access customer files, develop their antenna solution, and return the Altium project ready for integration.

Building for the Future with Scalable Tools 

As Quarterwave continues to grow, scalability and collaboration are top priorities. “If we’re doing more hardware designs then we need the Altium tool and collaboration features that Altium gives us,” says Nikola Dobric, co-founder and CEO at Quarterwave. “This is very important for us to have. We always need to think two steps ahead. If we build something up it must be scalable and so we don’t get problems in the future.” Looking ahead, the team is exploring how Altium 365 could further strengthen their ability to collaborate with customers and streamline development as their business expands.