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Show HN: Copperhead – Hardware as Fast as Software

117 pointsby animeshchouhantoday at 1:26 PM45 commentsview on HN

Comments

mikeaylestoday at 2:03 PM

The space is definitely heating up.

Flux.ai being the incumbent Silixon based out of the UK have been showing demos Quilter and DeepPCB for layout The recent OpenAI demo...

I went the other way and pre-designed sub circuits with a set of rules that allows simple merge assembly, unfortunately I didn't have the time or budget to continue with it, but I took the constrained approach as with hardware, things can't be 99%.

The one thing I will say, is that my experience of hardware engineers is very gatekeepy.

Any questions about the use of AI for any form of automation on forums/Reddit get shot down instantly and the OP's told 'skill issue' more or less. In my opinion, just as with software, most work is simple and should be automated, there will always be a need for the real engineering when it comes to high specification work, high volume optimisation and hardware debug (although Claude code is pretty handy at driving a Jlink)

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jimberlagetoday at 2:29 PM

This is probably not the primary way people use the tool, but if I log in (desktop, Chrome on macOS), click "Start a board" on the sidebar, and go to click any of the inputs, I can't type text in them (the inputs are "Start from an example", "What are you building", and "The brief".

aitchnyutoday at 3:24 PM

Why would somebody ever use a hosted version? I see "One-click gerber, DXF/STEP, render and BOM export" and "Altium support beyond KiCad" in cloud plans, dunno if they are compelling.

tylergetsaytoday at 2:15 PM

Can I take the output of this and get a fully assembled board mailed to me? Thats my dream...

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danielmorozofftoday at 2:04 PM

Has anyone had experience with Copperhead vs Astra and kicad? Looking for a similar tool soon

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anirudhojhaaniltoday at 2:17 PM

With AI enabled consumer hardware usecases going to explode this is something super relevant. At least 5 startups have pitched their wearables to me and they could definitely use this

motoboitoday at 2:24 PM

"hardware as fast as software". Please no, lol.

I've imagined a chip running as slow as python.

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krttherealesttoday at 3:41 PM

it would propably help thousands of ppl ngl

fwiptoday at 2:53 PM

Might be a better website if it wasn't all clearly AI-copy.

"Nothing commits without its gate."

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mattanimationtoday at 3:04 PM

look inside, sees typescript, walks away.

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Tiberiumtoday at 2:14 PM

https://github.com/i2cjak/T3CAD seems like another promising project

tadasvtoday at 1:52 PM

I used claude and gemini to edit/debug kicad schematics. And it was pretty good. What is the point of this agent?

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