AI Design Reviews

Design reviews are still necessary because the only thing more time-consuming and expensive is missing errors and catching them once you’re already in production. If you want to get hardware to production faster, without mistakes, you need to streamline your design review process. AI like Flux Copilot can automate these menial tasks so that engineers can save time and instead focus their efforts on more high-leverage tasks. 

Flux Copilot lives inside of your project, meaning that it understands the context of your design - including the components and the information inside of their datasheets. Copilot understands the intricate interconnections between components on your schematic, and with Copilot Presets, it even understands your design goals such as power consumption, pricing, and operating conditions. You can't be an expert at everything, but Copilot can.

If you’re interested in incorporating AI design reviews into your current workflow contact sales today. Now, read on to learn about how we’re using Copilot to reimagine design reviews, and what our vision for the future looks like.

Faster Functional Review with AI

When your team has finally designed a schematic, the design should be reviewed to confirm the expected functionality. This can come in many forms, but, on the highest level, functional verification comes down to ensuring that your design uses the right combination of components, in the right conditions, and with the right surrounding circuitry. 

There are many ways that AI can assist in this process. Flux Copilot lives inside of your project, meaning that it has full access to your design - including the components and all of the information inside of their datasheets. Copilot understands the intricate interconnections between components on your schematic, and with Copilot Presets, it even understands your design goals such as power consumption, pricing, and operating conditions.

Some of the most valuable functional review use cases that Flux users have been benefiting from include

Decoupling Capacitors

‍Copilot scrutinizes each IC pin in the schematic to ensure that a decoupling capacitor is present if required. It also verifies that each capacitor is appropriately rated for voltage and capacitance, ensuring that ICs operate within stable electrical environments without manual verification. Simply ask Copilot

Pull-up/down Resistors

For pins that require pull-up or pull-down resistors to maintain correct logic levels, Copilot ensures these resistors are present and correctly valued. This review helps maintain functional integrity throughout digital circuits, especially in complex designs. An example prompt might be

Power and Grounding

‍Copilot can check that all components requiring power are correctly connected to power sources and that all grounds are properly established. This ensures no component is left unpowered or incorrectly grounded, which is crucial for circuit functionality. Try asking

In each of these prompt examples, Copilot will read through component datasheets, check the context of your design, and provide expert-level feedback to your team. That way, errors can be caught earlier on and not propagate deeper into your design’s lifecycle.

Ensuring Compliance with AI Reviews

It’s one thing for your design to work, but, for a product to work reliably, it needs to be compliant with industry standards and regulations as well as your enterprise’s internal standards. This is often one of the biggest headaches in bringing a product to market.

For example, maybe the product team requires that your design achieves certain product certifications, meaning that there are rigid compliance standards to adhere to. Checking all the parts in your BOM to ensure that they meet your project requirements takes forever. In a situation like this, Copilot can ensure that the schematic design adheres to specific industry or environmental standards or regulations by checking component specifications and circuit configurations against predefined criteria. For example, ask Copilot

Or maybe your organization has strict design rules that should be adhered to concerning temperature ratings, power ratings, or derating characteristics. With Flux, every organization can define its specific design constraints using Copilot Templates. These templates are a place for your organization to define its project requirements so that Copilot can check your design against these rules to ensure that your design is meeting expectations. 

With this knowledge, Copilot can read through datasheets to automatically verify that each component’s ratings are suitable for the intended application, reducing the risk of component failure under operational conditions. Just ask Copilot something like

With Copilot’s insight, you can ensure that your product reaches compliance with fewer design revisions, helping your team get the product to market faster.

Creating a Stronger Supply Chain 

Launching a product in the modern marketplace undoubtedly requires a design that is robust against supply chain volatility. 

How many times have you finished a circuit design only to find out that one or more of the components has 10+ week lead times? When you’re trying to get a product to market, you can’t be at the whims of the post-COVID electronics supply chain. 

Want to see if the parts in your BOM are all sourceable? Flux offers built-in integrations with industry-standard suppliers like Mouser, DigiKey, and LCSC to provide real-time pricing and availability data for all of the parts in your design. 

Then, if you're in need of component alternates, Copilot does the hard work for you. Thanks to our partnership with UltraLibrarian, Flux Copilot has access to thousands of the industry’s favorite parts right in the Flux Library. That means that Copilot can search through its database of components, comparing datasheets and availability data with your original part to find the most ideal drop-in alternates for your design. Ask copilot

Free your team from volatile supply-chain fluctuations and ship products on your own schedule.

A Faster, Better Way of Working 

This is only what’s possible with Copilot and AI today. In the future, we imagine a world where AI can do much more. 

What if AI could continuously review your design in real time without being prompted? What if we could harness AI to make sure that there were no design errors ever, and first revision designs were good enough for production? We are building a future where faster and more continuous design reviews enable a completely new way of working, regardless of your platform or workflow.

At Flux, we believe that those “what-ifs” don’t have to be dreams. We are constantly working to make them a reality.

Want to learn more about how Flux’s AI can help revolutionize hardware design? Sign up for Flux today.