For reasons we need not go into here, I was just perusing a column on French phrases that people in France do not, in fact, use (I’m sure knowing this will come in handy one day).
The column in question was 9 French Phrases Native Speakers Never Use on the Babble language learning app website. For example, in this article we read: “Sacré bleu is one of several exclamatory French phrases that native speakers never use. Zut alors! will also draw some eyerolls from native speakers, and even mon dieu! (my god!) is more common in English headlines about France than in the mouths of the actual French.”
Well, all I can say is je ne sais quoi (and I mean that most sincerely). I’m joking… there’s a lot more I can say (did you ever doubt me?). For example, one of the entries in the aforementioned column is “double entendre.” This reminded me of the joke about the beautiful (if delightfully dim) young lady who walks into a swanky cocktail bar and asks the bartender to give her a Double Entendre… so he gives her one (I didn’t say it was a good joke).
But we digress…
In my previous column, Making Machine Vision Accessible and Affordable for Engineers, Educators, and Makers, I mentioned the concept of “the fundamental interconnectedness of all things” and how I constantly seem to run into this sort of thing in my own life.
For example, I explained how the Community Manager at Hackster.io, Jinger Zeng, recently asked me to contribute regular Throwback Thursdays columns waffling on about technologies of yesteryear (waffling is one of the things I do best), and how my first two columns, Bodacious Wooden Breadboards and Springing Into Action with Spring Connectors, have already posted.
The latter of these columns discussed the spring connectors featured in the hobbyist electronic kits of the 1960s and 1970s. So, you can only imagine my exclamation of “sacré bleu!” when I arrived home yesterday evening to discover a surprise package containing a Science Fair 150-in-1 Kit as shown below.
Science Fair 150-in-1 Kit (Source: Clive “Max” Maxfield)
There was no indication as to who had gifted me with this bodacious beauty. It was a puzzling poser indeed. I just texted the above picture to my friend, Joe Farr, who is based in the UK, because he collects kits of this ilk. In my message, I said, “Guess what I’ve got.” In his response, Joe said, “Oh, good, so it’s arrived then.” It turns out he ran across this on eBay in the USA. Having seen my earlier Throwback Thursdays column in kits, remembering that I’d been talking about devoting a future column to the topic of crystal radios, and knowing this kit includes a crystal radio project, Joe thought it would be a pleasant surprise. It certainly was!
But wait, there’s more, because Jinger just sent me an email asking, “Are you aware of the forthcoming FPGA Horizons Conference that is to be held on 7 October 2025 in London, England (Hackster.io is supporting it)?”
I replied that I certainly was aware of this auspicious event, which is being organized under the auspices of Adiuvo Events. This is headed by my old friend Adam Taylor, who is the founder of Adiuvo Engineering & Training.
As an aside, this conference is going to be the place to “see and be seen” in FPGA space (where no one can hear you scream). There are FPGA-related events in America and Europe, but—to the best of my knowledge—there has never been a dedicated, standalone FPGA conference in the UK. As you’ll see on the FPGA Horizons’ Agenda and Speakers pages, there’s a fantastic lineup of presenters and topics (all technical—no marketing fluff). This is an awesome deal for only £100, so I’d Register Now before all the good (comfy) seats are taken.
Jinger responded by saying, “I met Adam Taylor last week in person in Harlow! Check it out here.” The associated LinkedIn post has a great picture of Jinger and Adam in his office. I added my own comment to this post saying, “The only thing that’s missing from this picture is me!”
She went on to say, “I enjoyed talking to Adam about his engineering journey and how he became an engineer.” I could keep this up all day, because I responded, “Adam’s is certainly an interesting story. In fact, I wrote about it in one of my There’s More Than One Way to Become an Engineer columns.
But none of the above is what I intended to talk about…
As you know, AI is making its presence felt all over the place. For example, see my column about Sophie the Sage, who is the co-host on the Toronto Talks video podcast.
I also have a strong interest in AI being used in the context of electronic designs. Until recently, most of this work has been taking place in front-end circuit design by companies like CELUS (see Wow! AI-Powered “Sketch-on-Napkin” to Embedded Design), Circuit Mind (see From Architecture to PCB Schematic in 60 Seconds! and From Power Supply Block Diagram to Completed Design in 60 Seconds!) and Flux.ai (see May the Flux (Copilot) Be with You!).
Until now, however, I haven’t been aware of AI being used in the context of printed circuit board (PCB) layout. As it happens, I have a tangential history with respect to PCB layout software. For example, I used to work for Intergraph Electronics, which acquired Daisy and later spawned VeriBest, which was acquired by Mentor Graphics, which was itself acquired by Siemens EDA (goodness only knows what will happen tomorrow).
As part of this, I’ve seen layout tools evolve from relatively simplistic offerings to incredibly sophisticated tools, like Mentor/Siemens’ Expedition, which is a high-end PCB layout and design tool used by professionals working on complex, high-speed, multi-layer board designs—typically in industries like aerospace, telecom, automotive, and advanced computing.
Although I’ve seen layout designers using things like interactive routing technology, the ones I knew were extremely disparaging about automated routing (auto-routing) tools and techniques. Admittedly, this was many moons ago, but if anyone had cared to ask my opinion, I’d have guessed that today’s PCB designers would be even more deriding and denigrating with respect to AI-powered PCB layout tools and technologies.
So, you can only imagine my surprise to discover that AI-powered PCB layout is here, and that it’s pretty darned awesome. For example, I was just chatting with Duncan Haldane, who is CEO at JITX.
To be honest, Duncan provided me with enough material for a whole slew of columns (be afraid, be very afraid). For our purposes here, however, I’m going to try to boil things down as follows. Let’s start with the fact that one thing AI is really good at (and is getting better at every day) is writing code.
I think it’s also fair to say that traditional PCB layout tools don’t really excel at design reuse and optimization—layout designers have only a very limited amount of time to try new things, placement and routing-wise, after which they must do the best to finagle what they have.
What the folks at JITX said to themselves is, “How can we take the best hardware engineering and make it reusable and scalable like software?” Their solution was to turn the design problem into a coding problem.
In their code-driven EDA tool, the way you interact with it is you write code, you run that code, and it generates a schematic and a layout. And then you can edit the code, you can rerun it, and you get a new design. This code drives your schematic, your symbols, your connectivity, your component selection, your supply chain automation, and your layout.
And one thing you can do really, really well with code is have a lot of smart programmatic constraints that drive everything, including optimization. Perhaps the easiest way to convey this concept is via the following illustration from the JITX website:
As always, “the proof of the pudding is in the eating,” as they say. Duncan told me that they recently used JITX to help an aerospace customer with a memory layout problem. It seems that a single channel typically took the customer six to ten weeks with their existing tool, which was one of the leading layout tools in the market. By comparison, the JITX AI-driven approach was able to do the same thing in three days. Also, the existing tool needed five layers for the routing, while JITX did it in three.
The great thing about this is that you can start evaluating JITX technology for free. Also, you can contact the folks at JITX to discuss your specific use case and set up a demonstration,
trial, or training with the appropriate use plan.
Duncan was kind enough to give me an online demo. All I can say is mon dieu! What about you? Do you have anything you’d care to add in English, French, or the language of your choice?
