Right. KiCAD for PCB design. Blender for 3D CAD. Oh, are you saying I should have used something other than the KiCAD MCP server for better results?

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VorpalWay 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Designing circuit board and 3D models (even using something like OpenSCAD) is a very spatial process today. You are dealing with coordinates one way or another.

This is very unlike how FPGA and (I assume) ASIC is done. That is more like a traditional programming language but everything happens all at once (no sequence of statements outside tests, if you need that you have to write a state machine yourself). You define logic expressions between signal, add stateful latches, etc. But you never specify the physical layout.

Instead you feed your description to a tool that acts a constraint solver/optimiser that computes the layout for you (this is for FPGAs called synthesising IIRC, it is akin to a compiler). Typically quite slow, even for small circuts like we did at university it took minutes, and for large circuits it might easily days.

Now, this raises the question, what if you design a PCB net list using AI, but then use traditional autorouting and layout? I believe that can also be done, but I have no experience designing PCBs, so I don't know how well it works.

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y1n0 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

For digital chip design, research Verilog and/or SystemVerilog, and for tools, check out verilator and the OSS cad suite: https://github.com/YosysHQ/oss-cad-suite-build

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quadrature 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

VHDL is not a language for spatial design. Its more akin to a programming language with circuit semantics.

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dcrazy 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They’re saying that VHDL is an entirely different concept than physical modeling.

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giancarlostoro 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You're comparing apples and oranges.

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cwillu 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Meta: can we not downvote people who are clarifying what they're saying and asking questions, even if they're wrong about something, if the content isn't otherwise objectionable?

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baq 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I didn’t downvote, but the OP is either a troll or someone who doesn’t want to notice he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Either way we want less of that on HN.

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knicholes 6 hours ago | parent [-]

I'll acknowledge that I don't know what I'm talking about. I really appreciated the clarity! Surely you find value in knowing that creating your own custom chips is almost doable by someone who doesn't know what they're talking about! (also, I am a troll, but in this case, just clueless)

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Lukas_Skywalker 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Maybe the confusion stems from the word "chip". Creating a chip usually means designing and producing a microcontroller or a processor, not a printed circuit board that you populate with existing chips.

	▲	knicholes 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Ohhhhhh! Yes, that's exactly the problem. It all makes sense now. I was just piecing together an existing microcontroller and a mp3 module by printing a custom circuit board.

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5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]

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tamimio 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

One (kicad) make the board, the other (blender) make the casing for it. Both are “hardware” but is electronics and the other is mechanical. Electronic one AI can do a good job, I can’t wait for it to fully built the whole circuit for you based on your specs.