Today, we’re excited to share our Summer Update to Flux AI Auto‑Layout, a collection of improvements designed to make one‑click PCB routing more reliable, transparent, and adaptable to your real‑world workflows.
Creating a manufacturable, error-free PCB is never simple. Every engineer knows that missed details lead to production delays, costly revisions, and project setbacks. But what if you could have the power of a seasoned review team guiding you, 24/7?
At Flux, we believe that AI should be more than a tool—it should be a design partner that helps you navigate these challenges and produce better work faster. That’s why we’ve created AI-powered design reviews. It goes beyond traditional ERCs by understanding your project’s context and constraints, helping you catch not only blatant errors but also potential optimizations and nuanced issues. It’s like having an experienced engineer available at all times to review your work and offer guidance.
Electrical Rule Checks (ERCs) are a standard part of PCB design, flagging rule violations such as unconnected pins or electrical loops. While these checks are necessary, they often lack the depth needed to fully understand the broader context of your design. This can leave critical gaps in your review process and result in missed opportunities for optimization or overlooked issues that only surface later.
For experienced engineers, thorough reviews are time-intensive, so they’re often done less frequently. In a small team or startup, you might not always know what to look for, which can lead to overlooked issues Flux’s AI-powered design reviews change that by transforming a traditionally reactive process into a proactive one.
What sets Flux AI design reviews apart is its ability to leverage your project’s context and detailed data—such as part datasheets, application notes, and design constraints—to provide deep, actionable insights that mimic a human expert’s guidance. Unlike simple DRCs, which are limited to binary pass/fail results, Copilot’s checks are context-aware and interpretive. This means you’re not just checking if your design meets basic criteria; you’re getting insights into whether it aligns with best practices, meets safety margins, and is optimized for production.
We also understand that user trust in AI-driven engineering tools is paramount. That’s why we developed these checks to blend deterministic algorithms with AI, striking a balance that ensures accuracy, reliability, and confidence.
We’re launching with targeted reviews that cover essential areas and will be expanding them based on user feedback.
Included in the Beta Release: The first of many checks you can expect
The system always explains why an issue was flagged. This combination of deterministic algorithms and AI ensures that checks are reliable, comprehensive, and adaptable to your specific project.
Flux’s AI design review panel is designed to be intuitive and flexible:
Flux Copilot doesn’t just check for pass/fail criteria; it interprets the constraints of your project and cross-references them with your design. This means that beyond simple ERCs, the AI can flag issues that might otherwise go unnoticed.
Imagine you’re working on a PCB and running a passive component check. Copilot flags a warning for capacitor C3, stating, “Ceramic Capacitor C3 has a voltage rating of 16V, which is less than the required 50V” . This isn’t just a binary check—it’s context-aware. It understands your circuit’s requirements and knows that a safe voltage margin should exceed 150% for reliable operation.
In the review panel, you see the flagged issue highlighted on your PCB layout, the voltage margin percentage shown, and an explanation of why it matters. This makes it easy to interpret the results and take corrective action quickly, ensuring your design meets reliability standards.
These initial checks are only the start. At Flux, we’re committed to continuously evolving our platform based on your feedback. Have specific checks or features you’d like to see added? Share your suggestions in our feedback portal. Your insights are invaluable in making Flux an even better design partner.
With AI as your partner, design reviews are more thorough and run more frequently, resulting in safer designs. Flux is here to help you focus on what you do best: creating innovative, reliable hardware.
If you’re using EasyEDA and are thinking of making the switch to Flux, learn how the two platforms differ and why Flux might be the next step in elevating your PCB design experience.
If you’re using EasyEDA and are thinking of making the switch to Flux, here’s how the two platforms differ and why Flux might be the next step in elevating your PCB design experience.
Flux and EasyEDA share several benefits that have become essential to hardware designers, particularly being cloud-based. These shared features have revolutionized how designs are accessed, shared, and managed:
Yet, it’s in their differences that Flux shines, offering unmatched speed, innovation, and future-forward capabilities that transform the PCB design landscape.
Flux Copilot is the industry’s first AI-powered design assistant integrated into a PCB design tool. By understanding schematic designs, component lists, and datasheets, Copilot offers a wealth of capabilities that can reshape how you approach hardware design.
EasyEDA utilizes a traditional ECAD user interface familiar to many designers, with menus, tools, and pop-up windows that follow a conventional layout. This structure works well for many users, particularly those accustomed to classic design tools. However, as projects grow in complexity, navigating through multiple menus and pop-ups can slow designers down, adding extra steps and manual interactions that can disrupt the design flow.
In contrast, Flux is designed with a modern, forward-thinking user experience that streamlines the entire design process. By eliminating the need for excessive toolbars and manual file management, Flux provides a seamless, cloud-based environment where designers can move between schematic, PCB, and simulation views without interruptions. The interface is sleek, responsive, and optimized for fast, intuitive design workflows.
Flux not only provides a browser-based platform where new features and fixes are deployed instantly, but it also offers dedicated, first-class support that ensures your design process is always smooth and productive.
Making the switch to Flux is easy. Create a Flux account, follow the EasyEDA to Flux migration tutorial to get your projects into Flux, or follow this video tutorial:
KiCad revolutionized PCB design by making it accessible to everyone. Flux builds on that foundation, offering a browser-based, AI-powered platform that takes your PCB design experience to the next level.
If you’re a KiCad user considering a switch to Flux, you might be wondering how the two platforms compare. To help you decide, we’ve broken down the key differences that set Flux apart from KiCad and how it can streamline your design process.
In KiCad, it can take a while to configure your project to get started. Even when you find a reference project, you still need to go through several steps to import the project, libraries, and everything you need get going.
In Flux, all you have to do is open a new project and everything is ready to go! What’s more - all public projects, parts, and modules can be forked and built upon with the click of a button. Similar to GitHub, Flux has been built with reusability in mind from the very beginning.
In KiCAD, library management, schematic editing, PCB editing, and simulation can feel like completely different flows. That can make it hard to keep track of everything and make sure your project stays in sync.
In Flux, the schematic editor, BOM, PCB editor, and simulator all work in one workflow that stays in sync in the browser. There’s also a version control system that makes it easy to revert changes.
In KiCad, you have to maintain multiple libraries which can become extremely time-consuming to keep up to date. When sharing KiCAD designs sometimes projects will break because the reference library isn’t linked.
In Flux, there’s a single unified library that’s being constantly updated and improved upon by the community. This allows you to easily use other people’s vetted parts instead of making your own.
Flux Copilot is the industry's first AI-powered hardware design assistant integrated into a PCB design tool. With its ability to understand schematic designs, component lists, connections, and part information from datasheets, Copilot offers a wealth of knowledge and capabilities that can transform the way hardware design is approached.
In KiCAD, files remain on your computer and sharing and getting feedback often involves sharing screenshots via emails and Slack conversations. Version control is also very difficult, especially when working with others.
In Flux, sharing with contractors, collaborators, clients, and other stakeholders is as easy as sharing a link.
With KiCAD, like all open source software, there is support by community members & contributors which is awesome! However, without centralized support, fixes and features can take easily up to a year.
With Flux, you have access to browser-based software where fixes and new features are instantly deployed to all users and a platform that’s updated frequently based entirely on your feedback.
Making the switch to Flux is easy. Create a Flux account, follow the KiCad to Flux migration tutorial to get your projects into Flux, or follow this video tutorial:
In this post, we’ll explore five common mistakes companies make when contracting PCB design and how you can avoid them by using tools like Flux to keep your project on track, from concept to completion.
PCB design is complex, and when you’re relying on external partners, even small missteps can lead to costly reworks, missed deadlines, or designs that aren’t manufacturable. Luckily, many of these headaches can be avoided with the right tools and practices.
In this post, we’ll explore five common mistakes companies make when contracting PCB design and how you can avoid them by using tools like Flux to keep your project on track, from concept to completion.
One of the biggest mistakes teams make when outsourcing PCB design is failing to set clear, detailed goals from the start. Without well-defined functional requirements, timelines, budgets, and constraints, it’s easy for the project to drift off course, leading to miscommunication and unmet expectations.
Clear goals ensure that both you and your contractor are aligned from day one. Without them, you risk costly delays, unnecessary revisions, and potentially ending up with a design that doesn’t meet your needs.
While clear requirements are critical, it’s also important to give the contractor room to innovate where it makes the most impact. For instance, allow flexibility in areas like power optimization, component placement, or alternative materials, so long as they meet the core functional requirements.
By using a tool like Flux, you can streamline this process even further. We’ve created a Flux Project Requirements Template that includes all the properties you need to define your PCB design requirements. This not only makes it easy for contractors to fill out, but Flux Copilot can also use these inputs to evaluate designs in real-time, ensuring your goals are met without constant back-and-forth.
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Providing your contractor with a head start can make a huge difference in the success of your PCB design project. When you give them initial drafts, prototypes, or even early design ideas, it helps your contractor understand your vision more clearly, accelerates the process, and allows them to provide better insights from the outset.
By offering them something to build on, you create a collaborative dynamic where the contractor can refine your ideas rather than starting from scratch. This not only saves time but also leads to a more aligned and higher-quality end result.
Communication is essential for any contracting relationship, but especially so in PCB design. Without regular check-ins and updates, issues can slip through the cracks, leading to costly revisions and delays later on. Frequent communication ensures that everyone stays on the same page, allowing you to catch potential problems early and keep the project moving forward smoothly.
The more you communicate, the better the end result will be. Contractors rely on your feedback and direction to align their work with your expectations, so regular updates are essential.
Scope creep is one of the biggest threats to PCB design timelines. It's easy to add more features as the project progresses, but this often leads to delays, increased costs, and a more complicated design than initially intended.
By limiting the scope, you allow your contractor to deliver a usable, testable design in a shorter time frame, which you can iterate on based on real-world feedback. This approach minimizes risk and helps you avoid being stuck in long design cycles.
The tools you use to manage the PCB design process can make or break the success of your project. Without the right platform to set goals, manage versions, and facilitate communication, it’s easy for things to go off track. Miscommunication, outdated files, and scattered feedback can lead to confusion and delays. Using the right tools helps streamline collaboration, ensuring that everyone involved in the project is working efficiently and with the latest information.
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Choosing a tool that supports seamless communication and version control can significantly reduce the friction that often occurs during outsourced PCB design.
By avoiding these five common mistakes and utilizing the powerful capabilities of Flux, you can transform how you approach contracting PCB design. With clearer communication, faster iterations, and smarter design tools, you’ll not only save time but also ensure a successful outcome for your project. Sign up for Flux today!
Learn how smart vias in Flux automates the selection, placement, and configuration of vias during the PCB design process. This automation reduces the manual effort involved in via placement and significantly lowers the risk of misalignment and other common errors associated with traditional via management.
Even for the most experienced engineers, high density interconnect designs remain difficult. Some typical challenges are:
Traditional EDA tools depend heavily on manual input for via placement. This makes density management primarily a function of hand-eye coordination. After placement, when you need to modify part of the design, you’ll quickly find yourself playing an unsolicited game of three-dimensional chess. Often, it’s easiest to simply wipe out the traces and vias, start over, and hope you won’t have to make another change to that part of your board.
After carefully laying everything out, the next big effort is to define and work through manufacturability, reliability, and cost considerations. In practice, this mountain of manual labor adds up. Designers are often forced to either compromise their design, risk overlooking mistakes, or delay their project.
Smart Vias in Flux is an intelligent feature that automates the selection, placement, and configuration of vias during the PCB design process. This automation reduces the manual effort involved in via placement and significantly lowers the risk of misalignment and other common errors associated with traditional via management
If you’re routing a trace and need to connect across multiple layers, Flux will place a Smart Via that automatically populates with the best suited combination of vias (micro, blind, buried, or through-hole), in a stacked or staggered configuration, respecting your project settings. For example, you might only want to use microvias on outer layers and use through-hole vias for everything else. With Smart Vias, you can just start routing. When you switch from Top to Mid-Layer 1, a Smart Via will get you there. You can change your mind and go to Bottom and the Smart Via will dynamically reconfigure itself to support that connectivity.
Smart Vias are powered by Flux’s innovative Layout Rules. Rules allow you to set your preferences from a central place in the Stackup. They also allow for control of individual Smart Vias right down to the details, like the direction or spacing of a stagger. The result is a feature gets out of your way when you want and also lets you sweat the small stuff.
To make it even easier to get started, simply clone or fork any of these templates.
Overall, Smart Vias addresses many of the challenges inherent in high density interconnect design and offers notable benefits to the designer.
We think this is a huge improvement over existing workflows and we’re excited for you to use it. Interested in experiencing the new Smart Via feature? Get started with a template today!
Avoid costly errors in your PCB design with these expert tips! Discover the 5 most common mistakes in trace width, vias, power planes, and more. Learn how Flux’s AI Copilot helps you catch these issues early, ensuring your board is ready for manufacturing.
Let's dive in.
One of the most common mistakes in PCB design is not paying enough attention to trace width and spacing, especially in high-current or high-speed applications. If the trace is meant to carry high currents but it happens to be too narrow, it can result in thermal issues or even a failure of the circuit.
The width of your trace can be determined by things like; how much current it should carry without overheating or causing excessive voltage drops, Impedance control, and sensitivity of the signal running through it.
Flux makes routing high speed signals, such as USB data lines, easier by automatically performing coupled routing of the data lines (D+ and D-) and calculating the impedance of the pair based on the PCB stackup. This helps prevent reflections that can cause signal distortion, timing issues, and data corruption.
Flux Copilot can also help you calculate the appropriate trace width based on the current it needs to carry, while also considering the required impedance for high-speed signals. Just ask something like:
@copilot please recommend trace width for my VBUS.
Then copilot responses:
“For VBUS, typically a 5V supply in USB applications, let's assume a common scenario where you might anticipate a current of up to 1A. Using a temperature rise of 10°C, the general guideline for trace width on a 1 oz/ft² copper PCB is approximately 20-30 mils (0.5-0.8 mm) per amp of current.”
Vias are crucial for connecting different layers in a PCB, but choosing the wrong size or type can cause issues in both signal integrity and manufacturing. Blind, buried, and microvias are often used in high-density interconnect (HDI) boards, but these require careful consideration during design. For instance, microvias are perfect for compact designs, but if placed improperly, they can lead to poor layer transitions or increased inductance.
Flux let’s you set up your stackup where you add all the manufacturer capabilities. When you need some more advice on what stackup best suits your design, always feel free to ask copilot for some ideas, you could ask
@copilot in a table format recommend vias sizes that i can use for my VDD3V3, my USB, and the other signal buses?
Then here's the copilot response,
If you're routing a high-speed differential pair, such as USB or PCIe, through multiple layers, via stubs can cause signal reflections that degrade signal quality. A rule of thumb is to ensure via lengths are minimized, or even better, use back-drilling techniques to remove stubs, especially in high-frequency circuits.
Moreover, not all manufacturers support the same via sizes, so checking with your manufacturer early in the design process can avoid headaches later. Make sure to adhere to their capabilities, including the aspect ratio limits (via depth to diameter), to avoid costly redesigns e.g. 20:1 for PCBWay.
The layout of power and ground planes is another common area where mistakes are made. These planes act as the backbone of your circuit's stability, so a poorly designed plane can introduce noise, increase EMI, and degrade power delivery.
By default, Flux starts you off with a solid, contiguous ground plane since it is critical for minimizing noise and providing a low-impedance return path for high-speed signals. It is advisable to avoid creating islands which can cause severe signal integrity.
Example:
Imagine routing a high-speed signal across a split ground plane. The signal may cross the gap, creating a longer return path, which increases inductance and can lead to signal distortion or timing errors in critical circuits like clocks or data buses.
Similarly, power planes should be wide enough to handle the current required by each section of the circuit. For designs with sensitive analog circuits, it’s often a good idea to have separate power planes or split planes for analog and digital sections to avoid cross-talk and noise coupling.
Designing with manufacturability in mind is essential to ensure that your board can be built without issues. It’s easy to forget that the design rules you use in your ECAD tool may not fully align with your manufacturer’s capabilities, and this can result in delays or additional costs.
Flux provides users with pre-configured templates which align with most of the popular manufacture (e.g. PCBWay, JLCPCB, AISLER, LION Circuits, SEEED Studio and many more) capabilities so that users don’t have to worry about manually configuring things like trace widths, keepout, and other parameters. A good general rule of thumb is to always start new project using Flux manufacturer design rule templates
There are numerous DFM tips but here are some common ones to consider;
Using Flux manufacturer design rule templates will alert you when either of the manufacturer capabilities are violated even before sending your files for manufacturing saving you time.
Decoupling capacitors are used to filter out noise and provide a stable voltage to ICs, especially in digital circuits where rapid switching causes power fluctuations. However, placing these capacitors too far from the pins of the IC can render them ineffective. It is advisable to place these decoupling capacitors as close as possible to the IC without violating the minimum spacing a manufacturer can work with.
Example:
In a typical microcontroller design, you should place decoupling capacitors (such as 0.1µF and 1µF) as close as possible to the VCC and GND pins. Ideally, the capacitors should be placed on the same layer as the IC to reduce parasitic inductance and ensure faster response times. Failure to do so can cause power integrity issues, leading to glitches or resets in your circuit.
Additionally, use vias sparingly when routing decoupling capacitors. Each via adds inductance to the path, which reduces the capacitor's ability to suppress high-frequency noise.
Before pressing that button to send your PCB design for manufacturing, it's worth taking a step back and performing a thorough review of your design. These design review steps can be quite a handful but what we have discussed above can be considered as the bare minimum. Flux manufacturer design rules makes it easy to ensure trace widths, appropriate via sizes, and manufacturer capabilities are considered when designing your board.
A thorough PCB design review can be a very daunting task, you might not be sure where to start or what checks to include in the review process. That is one of the reasons Flux’s AI lives in your project. You can use copilot to quickly check decoupling capacitors, power and grounding, ensuring compliance with industry standards, and even creating a stronger supply chain. To learn more about how you can use this tool, Sign up for Flux today.
