[sdiy] AI code generation

[brianw]

On Sep 4, 2026, at 5:36 AM, Mike Bryant wrote:
> Even after 50 years, automated place and route is poor on most PCB packages.  Maybe AI will crack the problem at last.

I know that everyone says what you're saying, Mike, but in my experience it requires human input.

Granted, if you just take the default settings and click the autoroute button, the results will probably be pitiful.

But if you actually read the manual and look at the dozens of parameters that control the autorouter, and then tailor them to your board, the results are impressive. Granted, for one of my boards, I needed different autorouter settings for power traces, analog traces, and digital traces, but with scripting it was easy. I bought a license for EAGLE before they became subscription based, and that software has scripting - which makes it easy to pair the selection of the nets by name with autorouter parameters that are tailored for that family of signals.

Sorry for responding to a thread about AI with comments about how human understanding and effort are more productive.

That said, professional layout businesses hire humans to do routing - they don't even use tweaked autorouting (at least not that they will admit).

Brian

p.s. I realize that you said "most" PCB packages.