Are you a hardware design engineer, have you ever imagined if you no more need to design schematic and do the PCB layout but just tell what all you want in the design and some mighty power (AI) will do rest for you?
Certainly, there is a push towards automating the hardware design, read about this project from DARPA.
It is no more fiction. There are various companies across the globe who are trying out artificial intelligence to automate so far the unautomated hardware/PCB design process, some companies are even going even further and trying to generate the embedded code according to the design requirements.
We all have seen auto-routers in PCB design but this is more than that, all the companies listed below are trying to capture the requirements at a very high-level and letting the software do the rest of the part automatically.
But, today these tools are still in the experimenting & development stage but I feel in a couple of years these tools will become much more advanced and will be able to automate most of the circuit design requirements across various industries. This is definitely the game changer technology in embedded system design.
If you are more interested to get into details of what it takes to create such a tool/technology, read this article from Zak Homuth about Compiling Hardware.
So, are you up for trying them out today what they can do?
Companies building Automation(AI) tools for the Hardware / PCB Design
1. JITX (USA )
JITX is building next‑generation software to help companies design better electronics. They are dedicated to solving difficult problems with huge impact, their first step is to automate circuit board design.
They are a seed‑stage startup, backed by Y Combinator.
JITX: The input is a high-level system block diagram (which could be on the back of a napkin), and a description of the required functionality. We work with you to hammer out the details and then work your design through our tools.
They offer a fixed price or subscription-based flexible engagement. Looks like they are not providing software as of now but helping companies automate hardware design and deliver it faster using their tools in the backend.
Some of the designs they have done (as mentioned on their website) are shown below:
See the JITX tool in action using a script to design a PCB.
2. Contunity Now Celus (GERMANY)
Celus is a german company that is reducing the complexity of designing electronics with the help of easy to use drag and drop tool to pick the required building block and then the software will automatically build the rest of the design.
See a quick introduction about what they are trying to build and why.
A short intro video is here:
They are still running pilot projects with a focus on large companies and enterprises. Their official release is planned for the middle of the next year.
You can contact them if you are interested to try their tool which is still in the development stage.
3. Flux AI PCB Design Tool with Copilot
Flux AI is a browser-based electronics design tool that helps you go from idea to PCB 10x faster. It has built-in support for modern hardware design methodologies: reusability, collaboration, and simulation.
Here are some of the key features of Flux AI:
- Reusability: Flux AI has a large library of pre-built components and projects that you can use to get started quickly. You can also create your own components and projects and share them with others.
- Collaboration: Flux AI makes it easy to collaborate with others on your designs. You can share projects, leave comments, and track changes.
- Simulation: Flux AI has a built-in SPICE simulator that allows you to test your designs before you send them to manufacturing. This helps you to avoid costly mistakes.
- AI Assistant: Flux AI also has an AI assistant called Copilot that can help you with tasks like wiring up your schematics and finding components.
Overall, Flux AI is a powerful tool that can help you to design and develop electronics more quickly and efficiently.
4. CADY: AI based Schematic Inspection Tool
CADY is a cloud based software which is used automatic inspection and verification of electrical schematics. CADY’s system has successfully identified significant errors in over 65% of the inspected schematics.
It helps reduce number of re-spins, faster time to market, and improved final product quality, reliability, and safety.
CADY is user-friendly and adheres to the highest data security standards. We do not store customer NetList and/or BOM files.Enhance your design process, conserve resources, save money, and accelerate time to market while contributing to the overall quality, reliability, and safety of your end product.
CADY is platform-agnostic and support all the leading CAD software: Mentor, Cadence, Altium. Zuken, Autodesk. Among the supported Netlist formats are Quick View Connections (*.qcv) and OrCAD netlist (.dat). Contact us if you require support for an additional software.
The inspection run-time ranges from a few minutes to a few hours, depending on the complexity of the design. The report is very concise, hence reviewing it should take up to 30 minutes.
5. Circuit Tree (INDIA)
Circuit Tree is an Indian startup that is trying to do a similar thing but they have a GUI based online tool to input the requirements.
They have another more advanced way of giving detailed custom inputs. They are taking the high-level requirement inputs and generating Schematic, PCB Design, BOM with pricing using the Octopart database automatically using their backend tool.
After the design is generated, an in-house team looks at the design and gives it a final finish before delivery. It is estimated that their tools help engineers save anywhere between 70 – 90% of the circuit design effort.
Some of the example PCB designs (Github) they have developed using their tool is shown below:
You can also watch a demo of their tool here:
If you are interested to take their services or want to try their tool, request for a demo here: https://app.circuit-tree.com/
6. CircuitMind (UK)
Circuit Mind is another technology company based out of London trying to completely automate the design of electronic circuits. Their compiler takes in the requirements for a circuit board and outputs the circuit board design.
They have a short introduction video on their website. It looks like they are in a very early stage of development and not yet ready to showcase what they have already built. I was not able to find more details on their website or somewhere else. I will try to contact their founders and if I get more details I will add here later.
I hope you find this article interesting and now you know some of the companies who are trying to change the way the hardware is getting designed today.
The future is really going to be interesting and hopefully, hardware design is not going to be that hard.
7. Zuken, PCB Design using AI (JAPAN)
Recently, Kyle Miller, Research Development and Product Manager at Zuken, sat down with Sierra Circuits during PCB West to discuss his fascinating work on AI for better PCB design.
Watch the full interview here:
8. InstaDeep (London)
InstaDeep launched DeepPCB in November 2019, Pune AI-Powered Cloud-Native PCB Routing.
AI product company InstaDeep, announced the launch of its new decision-making routing platform, DeepPCB™. The fully scalable Printed Circuits Board (PCB) router is an entirely automated, no-human-in-the-loop cloud-native product. It allows the user to upload their own board and get results in less than 24 hours, accelerating customer development cycles by weeks, if not months.
Check here, how it works.
9. Gumstix Geppetto (USA)
There is another company Gumstix originally a system-on-module manufacturing company based out of California. They have launched an online tool by name Geppetto which enables board design with ease of drag and drop of components and also shows the board in 3D so you know how your board looks before ordering.
One can see the cost of the board after the design is ready and they claim to deliver board in 15 working days with 2200 USD setup charge + board cost.
As per my knowledge, they are using pre-built circuit blocks and then later once the order is placed, the in-house engineering team designs the board and get it manufactured by an outside EMS company.
They are trying to automate the whole process which includes hardware design, sourcing, manufacturing, testing in one shot.
The only limitation is, they don’t provide design files to you and they have limited component and hardware platform support. But, over a period of time, I believe they will build more component support and it will become quite widely used tool.
Geppetto Introduction Video
If you like the article please share it with others. You can also read some of my other articles on embedded system design here.
If you a startup or a hardware engineer and need help in your design, you can contact me here.
Very useful information !! Thanks A lot !!
Wow! and all this while I was thinking that this is one domain where humans will be irreplaceable (because I’ve used auto-routers and know how ancient the technology is).
Things are changing now 🙂
Thanks for your comment.