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ChatGPT for Hardware Design

docs.flux.ai

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Re: ChatGPT for Hardware Design

#51

Post by rock_hard »

nunuvit wrote: post #39
rock_hard wrote: post #2

Founder here: Incredibly stoked to announce this today! This is a dream a long time in the making. When we first thought of rebuilding the hardware design tooling stack from scratch, AI driven design seemed like the dream at the end of the tunnel...only 3+ years later we are here Given the open ended nature of AI Expert agents we are launching a community preview. We are committed to keep building http://flux.ai in t…

Have you reevaluated the decision not to implement much by way of basic interface features like symbol and footprint editors for such a long time? It's a real barrier to even playing around with the software. I want to see you succeed, and my experience in the EDA industry and as an electrical engineer is making me wonder about that approach. It makes sense if you're just shopping it around to the EDA incumbents sinc…

Not sure I follow…maybe there is a misunderstanding here

We do have symbol and footprint creation and editing capabilities…in fact the vast majority of parts on the platform have been created by users.

Now what we don’t do is offer a modal editor like legacy tools do…instead it happens all in the same mode, which simplifies a lot of the UX and also provides powerful new abilities such using a schematic to create simulation models.

Now that said I think we can do a lot more here to further improve the experience and we def will but you are right in that it hasn’t been much of an issue which is because you have access to a vast preexisting library in the platform

Re: ChatGPT for Hardware Design

#52

Post by rock_hard »

arcticbull wrote: post #32
greg wrote: post #4

Engineer on the team here. Some of the interesting challenges of doing ChatGPT for circuit design were: 1) How to communicate the circuit connections to ChatGPT in the text prompt. We ended up just using the standard netlist format. Apparently it knows about netlists from its training data. It also knows about datasheets. 2) How to get the needed accuracy and precision for questions like "calculate the resistance nee…

Out of curiosity, I noticed in the video that it recommended for a voltage regulator either an LM7805 or an LM1117 - either a super inefficient 5V regulator that has no business in new designs, or a 1.2V low-dropout 800mA regulator that is probably not appropriate to the other components it recommended (i.e. an LM7805 -> LM1117 would be 36% efficient at best). It then also recommends a LiPo battery with a nominal 3.7…

In this case it seems to be giving examples of common ICs that are voltage regulators - these answers to high level questions are pretty vague by default.

We've had good results by asking follow up questions like "what power supply IC could I use to power a 3.3v microcontroller from a 3.7V nominal LiPo battery over the whole battery voltage range?".

I asked that question and I got: LM3940 and AMS1117-3.3 (LDO, high drop out but probably ok for low current - one isn't in stock but it doesn't have stock info yet), and TPS62203 and ADP2108 (bucks, both seem appropriate). These answers should get better as Copilot gets access to more and more tools.

Re: ChatGPT for Hardware Design

#53

Post by rock_hard »

amelius wrote: post #49

What I want most is simulation models of commercial components, and a good simulator... Oh and something that can read datasheets for me, and extract important parameters (or convert them to spice models). A tool that can hunt for cheap components would also be nice. Apart from that, I don't think I like to have any fuzziness in my workflow.

Yes, us too!

We are working on all of this right now and have a bunch more announcements over the coming weeks and months.

Stay tuned!

Re: ChatGPT for Hardware Design

#54

Post by nullsense »

markwu2001 wrote: post #11

PCB Designer on the team: Holy cow this is awesome! The integration of project context with an LLM enabled more than the sum of its parts when it comes to information access. When designing circuits for fast iterations, you're constantly managing risk and time expenditure; this leads to copying a lot of "flight heritage" circuits so to speak. With the LLM, I'm able to get highly condensed starting points for better c…

How often is it able to get it right first try?

Re: ChatGPT for Hardware Design

#55

Post by [deleted] »

jrockway wrote: post #42
masto wrote: post #41

Opened site. Chat popped up in the corner and started making sound effects. Closed site. I guess it doesn't matter if a few people are annoyed, if the end result of these things is a new increase in conversions. But I wish "don't annoy people" was actually in the product requirements.

Most "annoyance blocker" filterlists get these. In this case it's intercom.io which I block with Adguard's Annoyances lists: https://adguard.com/kb/general/ad-filtering/adguard-filters/

[deleted]

Re: ChatGPT for Hardware Design

#56

Post by markwu2001 »

nullsense wrote: post #54
markwu2001 wrote: post #11

PCB Designer on the team: Holy cow this is awesome! The integration of project context with an LLM enabled more than the sum of its parts when it comes to information access. When designing circuits for fast iterations, you're constantly managing risk and time expenditure; this leads to copying a lot of "flight heritage" circuits so to speak. With the LLM, I'm able to get highly condensed starting points for better c…

How often is it able to get it right first try?

I'll interpret "right" as in giving correct information. I found that it depends on the type of question asked; if it's somewhat general information such as design concepts and design topologies, it impressively nails it 99% of the time for my limited testing period. The main area it gets things wrong relates to very specific information that has only one source: e.g. datasheet specs. I heard the team already has plans to mitigate hallucinations on this front.

Also, I find myself having a conversation as I would with a real person, so it's less of spitting out the right answer for any technical question I might have, but more of a design buddy to consult when you're blocked on your search through the massive electronics solution space. Of course, this is a very preliminary use case and I can't wait to see what other people use it for.

Re: ChatGPT for Hardware Design

#57

Post by gfodor »

markwu2001 wrote: post #11

PCB Designer on the team: Holy cow this is awesome! The integration of project context with an LLM enabled more than the sum of its parts when it comes to information access. When designing circuits for fast iterations, you're constantly managing risk and time expenditure; this leads to copying a lot of "flight heritage" circuits so to speak. With the LLM, I'm able to get highly condensed starting points for better c…

I’ve been interested in learning how to design PCBs, I wonder if this tech helps constrain the set of things one ought to focus on learning, with the assumption that AI can fill in other areas.

Re: ChatGPT for Hardware Design

#58

Post by gfodor »

assimpleaspossi wrote: post #46
arcticbull wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, I noticed in the video that it recommended for a voltage regulator either an LM7805 or an LM1117 - either a super inefficient 5V regulator that has no business in new designs, or a 1.2V low-dropout 800mA regulator that is probably not appropriate to the other components it recommended (i.e. an LM7805 -> LM1117 would be 36% efficient at best). It then also recommends a LiPo battery with a nominal 3.7…

I find comments similar to yours about ChatGPT all over the internet. I finally took the time to ask that some questions over the last few days. All the answers it gave were mundane and expected from any click bait web site you can find. I Googled the same questions and found similar answers. Some personal questions it refused to answer or give suggestions because "only you can decide" was the response. I'm very susp…

You’re probably not using GPT-4, the internet is being flooded with takes about GPT-3.5’s quality like this simply because the author doesn’t know there is a meaningful difference with the new model.

Re: ChatGPT for Hardware Design

#59

Post by nunuvit »

rock_hard wrote: post #51
nunuvit wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you reevaluated the decision not to implement much by way of basic interface features like symbol and footprint editors for such a long time? It's a real barrier to even playing around with the software. I want to see you succeed, and my experience in the EDA industry and as an electrical engineer is making me wonder about that approach. It makes sense if you're just shopping it around to the EDA incumbents sinc…

Not sure I follow…maybe there is a misunderstanding here We do have symbol and footprint creation and editing capabilities…in fact the vast majority of parts on the platform have been created by users. Now what we don’t do is offer a modal editor like legacy tools do…instead it happens all in the same mode, which simplifies a lot of the UX and also provides powerful new abilities such using a schematic to create simu…

The last time I tried to evaluate it was a long time ago and it seemed to be all svg uploads. I had to re-read the docs more closely after reading your comment. It says you need to enter svg only for non-rectangular symbols, but it's not clear if you can create or modify a pad shape other than circular or rectangular from within the tool. Obviously good progress, and more than I understood when I wrote my previous comment. That's minimum viable for many to start using it, so my concerns are addressed.

The single mode thing is cool.

Re: ChatGPT for Hardware Design

#60

Post by markwu2001 »

gfodor wrote: post #57
markwu2001 wrote: post #11

PCB Designer on the team: Holy cow this is awesome! The integration of project context with an LLM enabled more than the sum of its parts when it comes to information access. When designing circuits for fast iterations, you're constantly managing risk and time expenditure; this leads to copying a lot of "flight heritage" circuits so to speak. With the LLM, I'm able to get highly condensed starting points for better c…

I’ve been interested in learning how to design PCBs, I wonder if this tech helps constrain the set of things one ought to focus on learning, with the assumption that AI can fill in other areas.

I love teaching PCB design! As with you, I'm also really curious about AI's contributions to learning. My opinion is that the automation of search and execution increases the impact one person can make so more time can be spent on connecting the dots at a higher level. Whether or not education catches up in time is another story haha. It's pretty open ended right now but it's undeniable that a huge educational gap there.
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