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Atopile is another thing in the circuits-as-code space: https://github.com/atopile/atopile https://github.com/atopile/atopile As a half EE/half SWE I think the

Atopile is another thing in the circuits-as-code space: https://github.com/atopile/atopile https://github.com/atopile/atopile As a half EE/half SWE I think there are significant benefits to circuits as code but I'm not impressed with this one. Atopile has a narrower focus (autorouters are really really hard) and doesn't use as many buzzwords. Like why on earth does a "web first approach" matter at all for hardware development? But also, GUI tools are getting better, Kicad 9 had a lot of changes that made templating / reusing blocks easier. And it works fine if not great with version control. I don't see circuit-as-code taking off with humans anytime soon, it's much better but not enough better to convince EEs many of which don't code much or at all. But I can see it becoming much more common as LLMs get better at complex circuits.

mystified5016 1y ago
I don't know why anyone wants to shove big heavy applications into browsers. Are they imagining you'd use your phone for this? Are we not teaching kids how to publish desktop applications these days or what?
- saidinesh5 1y ago
  My guess is the cross platform story. For cross platform development we barely have any decent, free development tools. It's a lot easier to find JavaScript developers in most places than c++/c# developers.
- imrishabh18 1y ago
  It's just not that we are imagining that people will be using phone to build PCB's, we also have a cli which perform better than the browser playground! https://docs.tscircuit.com/intro/quickstart-cli https://docs.tscircuit.com/intro/quickstart-cli
bb88 1y ago
> I don't see circuit-as-code taking off with humans anytime soon I don't agree with this. Circuits aren't really anything more complex than anything else humanity has had to figure out. Most knowledge in this area seems solvable. Maxwell's equations have been known for a century. For whatever reason, Software Engineering and Hardware Engineering even though they rely upon the same fundamental physics, are so very different? And apparently can't be reconciled? No. I don't believe it.
- cactacea 1y ago
  PCB layout is as much art and black magic as it is science. I'm not sure why you dismiss the complexity so easily, this definitely is not just a matter of applying Maxwell's equations.
  - 0_____0 1y ago
    Layout is a puzzle, especially with particularly high density layouts, but some of this is ameliorated by high layer count and fine trace/space boards becoming cheaper. Definitely not black magic. RF layout is black magic, let's not steal their thunder here.
    - tuetuopay 1y ago
      High speed PCBs are RF. At high enough frequencies, traces become waveguides, and the result cannot be predicted analytically. Simulation is your only light in this mess.
      - 0_____0 1y ago
        I have been lucky to not have to lay out anything that had frequencies of interest over 1Ghz or so. What's your experience been? E.g. types of signals, frequency range, issues you ran into?
        fxtentacle 1y ago
        Signals that arrive faster than what the speed of light should physically allow for that trace length because you made the corners too sharp and then instead of flowing along your path the electricity creates a magnetic field which then induces a current and that allows the signal to tunnel through non-conductive walls. High speed boards cannot be simulated well. Because they are far from deterministic. That's what makes them so different from coding.
        0_____0 1y ago
kev009 1y ago
It's probably a simple economics thing. You can hire out a contract PCB design for a reasonable cost and the long poll is getting back physical prototypes. Contrast to HDLs displacing schematic based designs for ASICs and programmable logic, where simulation allows for rapid development.
- fxtentacle 1y ago
  I'd say it's significantly different because you can get a physical PCB prototype in days for a few dollars while an ASIC prototype takes months and millions.
  - kev009 1y ago
    I'm not sure if you missed the point. HDL design work is done by simulation for countless iterations before ever making it to a physical prototype. ASIC prototypes come very late in the cycle and are usually a low digit number of revs. So the point is simulation carries you through most of the design feedback cycle, and a significant economic and technical effort went into industry automatic place and route, DRC/LVS, etc. I am also ignoring the human heavy side of layout especially around analog and RF which is more like PCB design still. A PCB can be reworked by hand on site. And those revs can be incorporated cheaply as you say. So the need to do all this programmatically is lowered below the economic threshold to make it all plausible in most cases. This presupposes that modern PCB tooling is itself semi-automated and includes simulation capabilities, but an expert operator is doing a lot of the decision making.

mystified5016 1y ago

I don't know why anyone wants to shove big heavy applications into browsers. Are they imagining you'd use your phone for this? Are we not teaching kids how to publish desktop applications these days or what?

saidinesh5 1y ago
My guess is the cross platform story. For cross platform development we barely have any decent, free development tools. It's a lot easier to find JavaScript developers in most places than c++/c# developers.
imrishabh18 1y ago
It's just not that we are imagining that people will be using phone to build PCB's, we also have a cli which perform better than the browser playground! https://docs.tscircuit.com/intro/quickstart-cli https://docs.tscircuit.com/intro/quickstart-cli

bb88 1y ago

> I don't see circuit-as-code taking off with humans anytime soon I don't agree with this. Circuits aren't really anything more complex than anything else humanity has had to figure out. Most knowledge in this area seems solvable. Maxwell's equations have been known for a century. For whatever reason, Software Engineering and Hardware Engineering even though they rely upon the same fundamental physics, are so very different? And apparently can't be reconciled? No. I don't believe it.

cactacea 1y ago
PCB layout is as much art and black magic as it is science. I'm not sure why you dismiss the complexity so easily, this definitely is not just a matter of applying Maxwell's equations.
- 0_____0 1y ago
  Layout is a puzzle, especially with particularly high density layouts, but some of this is ameliorated by high layer count and fine trace/space boards becoming cheaper. Definitely not black magic. RF layout is black magic, let's not steal their thunder here.
  - tuetuopay 1y ago
    High speed PCBs are RF. At high enough frequencies, traces become waveguides, and the result cannot be predicted analytically. Simulation is your only light in this mess.
    - 0_____0 1y ago
      I have been lucky to not have to lay out anything that had frequencies of interest over 1Ghz or so. What's your experience been? E.g. types of signals, frequency range, issues you ran into?
      - fxtentacle 1y ago
        Signals that arrive faster than what the speed of light should physically allow for that trace length because you made the corners too sharp and then instead of flowing along your path the electricity creates a magnetic field which then induces a current and that allows the signal to tunnel through non-conductive walls. High speed boards cannot be simulated well. Because they are far from deterministic. That's what makes them so different from coding.
        0_____0 1y ago

kev009 1y ago

It's probably a simple economics thing. You can hire out a contract PCB design for a reasonable cost and the long poll is getting back physical prototypes. Contrast to HDLs displacing schematic based designs for ASICs and programmable logic, where simulation allows for rapid development.

fxtentacle 1y ago
I'd say it's significantly different because you can get a physical PCB prototype in days for a few dollars while an ASIC prototype takes months and millions.
- kev009 1y ago
  I'm not sure if you missed the point. HDL design work is done by simulation for countless iterations before ever making it to a physical prototype. ASIC prototypes come very late in the cycle and are usually a low digit number of revs. So the point is simulation carries you through most of the design feedback cycle, and a significant economic and technical effort went into industry automatic place and route, DRC/LVS, etc. I am also ignoring the human heavy side of layout especially around analog and RF which is more like PCB design still. A PCB can be reworked by hand on site. And those revs can be incorporated cheaply as you say. So the need to do all this programmatically is lowered below the economic threshold to make it all plausible in most cases. This presupposes that modern PCB tooling is itself semi-automated and includes simulation capabilities, but an expert operator is doing a lot of the decision making.