An EDA or CAD editor gives you features. The Flux agent combines routing, length tuning, simulation, and checks into workflows that no single feature provides, for the board and the mechanical design.
7 Min Read · Nico Tzovanis ·
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An EDA or CAD editor gives you features. The Flux agent combines routing, length tuning, simulation, and checks into workflows that no single feature provides, for the board and the mechanical design.
Robotic lines now build low-volume circuit boards with no changeovers. The slow part is the handoff: Gerbers, zip files, and DFM emails. Here is why design and manufacturing data must stay in one project.
DDR routing is a timing problem, not a constraint-editor task. Flux routes length-matched byte lanes and carries skew limits, topology, and timing budgets through layout changes.
SI, PI, EMC, and DFM review used to need an Altium or Cadence seat and a specialist. In Flux, the agent runs the review, fixes what it finds, and checks the mechanical parts too.
The Flux agent picks decoupling capacitors from a PDN impedance simulation with real vendor ESR and ESL models, and checks load-step droop. No more 100 nF on every pin by habit.
Calculators deskilled long division, and nobody misses it. AI will do the same to hand-routing and redrawing enclosures. The job was never clicking in CAD. It was deciding what to build and making sure it works.
Stack Overflow taught a generation to code by asking strangers. Hardware needs an engineer inside the design, working on the electronics and mechanical assembly together.
MCP servers and computer use let AI agents drive desktop CAD tools one human-sized step at a time. Editing text files is not the answer either. Agents need direct access to the EDA and CAD kernels, and to the simulation and validation tools behind them.
It does not matter if an AI or a human designed a board. What matters is whether it works when it is manufactured: electrical validation, manufacturability, production yield, and the cost to design it.
Apple brought Touch to the Mac just as design input moves to text and voice. Tell the AI engineer what to change, then pinch, pan, and spin the board and its enclosure with your fingers.
Every AI model has strengths and weaknesses, and the best model for one hardware task can be terrible at the next. The breakthroughs will come from domain-specific AI engineers that give each task to the model that does it best.
A full-board, coupled simulation of every electrical, thermal, and electromagnetic effect at interactive speed is not practical. The useful simulations are scoped approximations, and the skill is choosing the scope.
Coding agents can generate hardware designs. Manufacturers already see what happens when those designs do not work. Making it easier for agents to order hardware does not fix that. Making sure the hardware works does.
Design hardware from your phone by voice. Tap the microphone, say what to build or change, and Flux does the PCB and mechanical work. Then check the result in 2D and 3D.
Ask the Flux agent to route a complete board or only the nets you name. Route differential pairs, match lengths, fan out a BGA, break out USB-C, and change widths and layers. Then refine any route in the chat.
Download a complete Flux device as OpenUSD, with its part names, colors, placement, and exact solids. Import a USD part, and let the Flux agent edit it.
Describe a device in one sentence, or show Flux a photo. Flux draws a concept sketch around real parts. When you like the sketch, Flux uses it as the reference for the 3D model.
AI coding took off with AI-native tools, not with agents bolted onto old IDEs. KiCad + Codex is an agent bolted onto a desktop tool. Flux is one shared environment for your team and its AI engineers.
Ask Flux to machine the part that it designed. Flux makes the toolpaths for your mill and gives you the G-code, a toolpath preview, and a setup sheet, in the same project as the board and the enclosure.
The Flux interface is now available in 18 languages, and the Flux agent answers in the language that you write in. Engineers in different countries work in one live project, each in their own language.
Type / in the Flux chat box. You get the commands that you already know from your coding agent: start fresh, switch modes, pick a model, stop, or ask a side question.
Ask the Flux agent to simulate a routed feed. On a real 2.4 GHz board, Flux put the ports on the copper, ran a full-wave simulation, and showed S11 of −33.7 dB and 51.9 Ω at 2.45 GHz, with a field map.
Ask Flux what the cables for your device cost. Flux reads the connectors and nets from your project, picks the mating housings and the wires, and gets a real price and lead time from a harness manufacturer. To order, open the checkout link with the cable already filled in.
Stop sending STEP files. The Flux 3D View puts the board, the enclosure, and your team in one live model, and the agent changes electronics, mechanics, and firmware in one step.
Flux Chat is free. Ask about your device, weigh electronics and mechanical trade-offs, and write the spec in your project. Then build it in Agent mode.
Adaptive gives each hardware engineering task to the model that does it best for the price, and runs many tasks at the same time. Frontier performance at 30% lower cost.
Give the Flux agent your own API keys for distributor pricing, PCB and 3D-print quotes, and any web API, for example Golioth or Arena PLM. The agent sees only a placeholder.
Ask the Flux agent for a video of the product it designed. It makes launch clips, vertical clips, product ads, and multi-shot stories from your board or enclosure.
Upload a STEP, IGES, or BREP file, and the Flux agent rebuilds it as editable CAD code, makes your change, and saves a new model. Your original file stays unchanged.
Flux builds curvature-continuous surfaces with NVIDIA SMLib. Check them in the 3D View with zebra stripes, a curvature map, curvature combs, and a cross section through the enclosure.
Ask Flux for a one-off engineering tool, and the agent builds it as an interactive page in the project's Files tab: a filter plot, converter waveforms, an eye diagram, or a 3D heat sink.
Moving a hardware team to Flux is a change in how engineers work: define intent, direct the AI, verify the result. Six mindset shifts and a four-week pilot plan.
Flux now designs custom hardware enclosures directly from your PCB. Generate manufacturable, 3D-printable cases with cutouts and mounting holes that stay in sync with your board.
A teardown of the input device that set the template for modern controllers — the dog-bone grip, the diamond button layout, and the shoulder buttons nobody had tried before.
Flux leaves private beta: browser-based, collaborative PCB design open to everyone.
8 Min Read · Matthias Wagner ·
Let’s start building.
Let’s build your idea together. All you need to do is describe what you want to make, or what problem you want to solve. Flux will work with you to make it a reality.
