Can AI design circuit boards yet? • Hacker News Board

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#141

Post by Always42 » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 5:39 AM UTC

SequoiaHope wrote: post #119

zorm wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone without PCB design experience but with dreams of physical things that could be made with PCBs this sounds amazing. What software are you using for the PCB design? Or just entirely letting Fable do whatever and checking the work with the browser page you mention?

The designs are in Kicad format, and the Kicad APIs are useful for Claude to work with. I would say that right now this involves a lot of knowledge about PCB design to do well, or for more detailed designs. However you might research how to design board for fabrication at JLCPCB and try something simple. Eg make a board with only LEDs in some pretty pattern and make it so you solder a raspberry pi Pico 2 to the board…

I have both Altium and Kicad experience. Can you explain further how you are setting up the AI to interface with KiCad? Is your AI having keyboard/mouse access or are you doing it only through API? Not familiar with Claude interface.

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#142

Post by CamperBob2 » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 5:39 AM UTC

msuniverse2026 wrote: post #114

Lets say I do vibetronics - Who can I then send the schematics to, to have troubleshooting completed? Is there a service that is like "okay we'll take your high voltage nightmare and double check that it won't make magic smoke"?

Send it to another frontier-level model.

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#143

Post by pineaux » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 5:46 AM UTC

mpodeley wrote: post #85

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,…

“Next-token prediction” describes the output format, not the computation required to choose each token. During training, models develop internal representations of concepts, constraints, possible futures, and algorithms. The PCB agent also writes circuit code, runs simulations, reads failures, and revises the design. It isn’t one-shot autocomplete. Astra and Fable are already hard to square with “mere autocomplete.”…

Yeah most of us are so fucked. With almost no way of protecting ourselves. No real amount of assets that will give enough power to save ourselves from the people in a position that can maximally leverage AI and lock others out. I see a future where these capabilities will be locked behind super high price pay walls. Why wouldn't they? How recoup investments if the price doesnt go up?

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#144

Post by edg5000 » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 5:59 AM UTC

Three things that worked well for Sol and also Fable:

- Designing circuits in Skidl

- Checking my layout work (not doing it)

- Operating my lab equipment (running my scope, lab PSU, lab load, programmer/debugger any any other interface.

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#145

Post by edg5000 » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 6:00 AM UTC

BlackRabbit1 wrote: post #75

We tested pretty much all available "AI" board and schematic auto-layouters in the market. All failed even with the most basic tasks. On the other side the latest frontier models are pretty strong in writing embedded C + Assembler code and debugging it afterwards. It's fun to watch it writing crazy complex 'gdb' plugins in Python. This improved brutally.

I find it's (Sol at least, probably also Fable) great at writing Skidl schematics, evaluating PCB layout work and operating lab equipment while testing board (scope, psu, load, debugger)

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#146

Post by edg5000 » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 6:03 AM UTC

extralongdivisi wrote: post #97

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 curren…

What kind of chips are you talking about? I guess most ARM SoCs and maybe RAM/ROM ICs?

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#147

Post by edg5000 » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 6:06 AM UTC

ccpc wrote: post #93

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.

What makes you think that? They're great at reading datasheets and creating schematics in my experience. Layout I've been doing myself though, with the AI evaluating. I'll eventually delegate that as well. For schematics I use Skidl and some custom binding generators.

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#148

Post by lefra » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 6:37 AM UTC

msuniverse2026 wrote: post #114

Lets say I do vibetronics - Who can I then send the schematics to, to have troubleshooting completed? Is there a service that is like "okay we'll take your high voltage nightmare and double check that it won't make magic smoke"?

Any company doing consultancy in electronics. You're going to have to pay for the time an electronics engineer spend on understanding what you want to do and reviewing your design, plus the consultancy's margin.

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#149

Post by lefra » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 6:43 AM UTC

extralongdivisi wrote: post #97

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 curren…

> A lot of datasheets are inaccessible without signing an NDA

Only for very high-end stuff, where just designing the board around the chip needs a team of engineers.

Re: Can AI design circuit boards yet?

#150

Post by sdcfgy » Sat, Sep 05, 2026, 6:49 AM UTC

iopapa wrote: post #47

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…

Claude is surprisingly good at discrete digital design with 74xxx, wonder what it trained on. Did you run it on anything else digital?

It's probably good at simple stuff. When you get problems like temperature dependent glitches, you need the engineering experience it doesn't give you (and an LA).