This paper presents a systematic system design procedure of the current control system for permanent magnet synchronous machines (PMSM). Through the linear quadratic optimization design for the first order plus time delay plant controlled by a PI controller, a set of empirical formulas are found for the controller gains and the resulting closed-loop system characteristics. A systematic design procedure for the PMSM current control system is developed based on these empirical formulas, which results in a system design optimized for the chosen optimization criterion and yet with low hardware requirements including a low digital sampling rate and a low PWM update frequency.