I'm excited by the option in Astra to route PCBs.

The next pain-point is sourcing the components from Digikey, LCSC, etc., and finding suitable substitutes if necessary.

Of course this assumes the LLMs can already read datasheets because that's the biggest pain-point in designing electronics. It's like filling out tax forms.

Finally it would be great if LLMs could extract simulation models from datasheets!

Sourcing parts has been a huge motivation for this. We are still pretty jarred by the supply chain crisis a few years ago. Having the ability to formally verify that an alternative part fulfills the original design constraints is huge.

Not sure whether you played with llm datasheet extraction lately, but they are working their way up there. Even started reasoning about curves and footnotes.

Where do you think is the biggest pain point: part discovery, datasheet verification or substitute determination?

  > I'm excited by the option in Astra to route PCBs.

Eurisko was used for VLSI chip design, then used rules discovered there to design TCS Traveler winning fleet.

It is unbelievable how artificial intelligence walk in circles.

Routing is the easiest part of layout, and there have been auto-routers (which mostly worked) for a long time now; the difficult task is in placing components, and adjusting those placements.