This paper is about designing an interior permanent magnet (IPM) synchronous motor used in automatic drilling and tapping machines. It has rated power of 7.5 kW, at a speed of 18,000 rpm. The maximum speed can reach 24,000 rpm. Based on the machine's size limitation and required performance, a suitable machine configuration and a slot-pole number are selected, and then the finite element software is used for analysis of the characteristics. To yield the desired performance, average torque, torque ripple and efficiency, the fuzzy-based Taguchi method coupled with the finite element method (FEM) analysis are used to refine the motor structure. Finally, the motor is constructed and tested.