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Can AI design circuit boards yet?

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Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#91

Post by [deleted] »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #88
kennyadam wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any resources anyone could share that explain how LLMs can do things like design functioning circuits from next token prediction? I am totally baffled by how the models can complete so many varied and complex tasks without an actual understanding of what they're doing. I saw a post about models posting on forums, chatting together about how to complete tasks. Behaviour that seems totally, well, human. Yet,…

>without an actual understanding of what they're doing. At what point do you start to question your assumptions that are causing you so much cognitive dissonance? But to answer your question: to predict the next token really well you just have to model the world. Think of it like this, a simple statistical model might say "when token A is seen respond with token B". The next step will add conditions, "...respond with…

[deleted]

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#92

Post by mapontosevenths »

akiselev wrote: post #86
kennyadam wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any resources anyone could share that explain how LLMs can do things like design functioning circuits from next token prediction? I am totally baffled by how the models can complete so many varied and complex tasks without an actual understanding of what they're doing. I saw a post about models posting on forums, chatting together about how to complete tasks. Behaviour that seems totally, well, human. Yet,…

> Yet, it's all the most likely token and my brain hurts trying to understand how that can be. You and everyone else. That's the great mystery of transformer architectures as applied to language. To be clear though, they're only good at schematic capture , which is very much a textual representation. Most of the data basically boils down to netlists, which are a text based format mapping connections between abstract…

They actually can route just fine. I used Sol to design and route mine from start to finish. Sent it to PCBWay and had a working prototype in a few weeks.

It was a pretty simple rp2040 based thing, similar to Adadfruits USB feather.I just gave it kicad and it wrote python to route it. The board was probably larger than it had to be, and two of the silkscreens were swapped, but it worked on the first go.

FWIW - Computer vision is also NP complete, but we do that all the time now.

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#93

Post by ccpc »

I'm finishing my bachelor's degree in radio electronics and instrument engineering. I've been using AI models to help me understand various concepts, but I want to say that, for now, they aren't ready for serious development.

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#94

Post by tdeck »

> When its 5 V supply disappears, the circuit has to keep the processor alive for another 20 ms so it can save the accumulated reading.

> Most models intuitively jump to the right base conclusion: add a capacitor.

This is written as if it's some astonishing expert knowledge and not something that would be obvious to any hobbyist who knew the names of basic components.

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#96

Post by brcmthrowaway »

CyLith wrote: post #27

A personal data point: I had Claude Opus 4.8 design a fairly textbook circuit that outputs a monochrome image burned in an EEPROM over standard 640x480 VGA using only 74 series logic and GALs. It designed the circuit and GAL code, and I did the routing, and got it made through JLC for $6. After it came back, there was one error that was not caught, which I could blue-wire, and it works just fine otherwise. I was fair…

Does JLC handle sourcing of components too?

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#97

Post by extralongdivisi »

Very limited study.

A lot of datasheets are inaccessible without signing an NDA. Even if you're a VC-backed enterprise, some unnamed chip vendors will tell you to pound sand if you're less than 8 figures of annual revenue.

Worse, many recommendations in datasheets were written in the 80s, overkill for many applications, or completely wrong and won't be updated until an errata is published 6 months later. Given current workflows, I don't see how AI would help designing a PCB with an alpha chip that's doing anything remotely novel.

More to the articles point, AI designing ASICs or other Verilog/HDL defined components could be very interesting use case

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#98

Post by jetbalsa »

brcmthrowaway wrote: post #96
CyLith wrote: post #27

A personal data point: I had Claude Opus 4.8 design a fairly textbook circuit that outputs a monochrome image burned in an EEPROM over standard 640x480 VGA using only 74 series logic and GALs. It designed the circuit and GAL code, and I did the routing, and got it made through JLC for $6. After it came back, there was one error that was not caught, which I could blue-wire, and it works just fine otherwise. I was fair…

Does JLC handle sourcing of components too?

They do, https://jlcpcb.com/parts

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#100

Post by cmrx64 »

kennyadam wrote: post #79
CyLith wrote: post #27

A personal data point: I had Claude Opus 4.8 design a fairly textbook circuit that outputs a monochrome image burned in an EEPROM over standard 640x480 VGA using only 74 series logic and GALs. It designed the circuit and GAL code, and I did the routing, and got it made through JLC for $6. After it came back, there was one error that was not caught, which I could blue-wire, and it works just fine otherwise. I was fair…

Are there any resources anyone could share that explain how LLMs can do things like design functioning circuits from next token prediction? I am totally baffled by how the models can complete so many varied and complex tasks without an actual understanding of what they're doing. I saw a post about models posting on forums, chatting together about how to complete tasks. Behaviour that seems totally, well, human. Yet,…

type “shai next-token” and then “transformers learn shortcuts to automata” into arxiv and prepare to be blown away
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