3 ms·
The Net-list stage of abstraction is the easy part, but auto-routing is not. People have tried many times to build a universal router with physics awareness fo
by Joel_Mckay 3y ago
The Net-list stage of abstraction is the easy part, but auto-routing is not.
People have tried many times to build a universal router with physics awareness for decades. The issue is in the real world there are countless edge cases where the EE must make a decision on the layout.
For low speed digital design... routers have partially worked since the 90's, but for most other things the edge cases make it counter-productive to automate.
EEs are good people to have around, and some know how to build things reliably.
Have a wonderful day, and I really hope the project does well. =)
- napowderly 3y agoFor sure, we are starting with the schematic/requirements side of things and will push in the layout direction soon. We have started with some simple layout snippet reuse that is available today. My experience with autorouters is they do not have a good understanding of the problem, we hope to improve that by being able to capture more information about the circuit, for example physical values like voltage and current are captured today. Our goal generally is to automate tasks that are boring/repetitive like multi-day reviews of big schematics to see if anything accidentally changed. Definitely building a lever for EEs, not a replacement. Thanks!
- bagful 3y agoAgree, I wish them the best of luck — I’m not convinced a computer will ever beat me in the single-sided perf board niche, and I’m but an amateur, but I’d be happy if one did.
- napowderly 3y agoYou might be right, dont think we will be tackling perf boards any time soon :D