Sergiy Nesterenko: Automating Circuit Board Design

Episode 128
I spoke with Sergiy Nesterenko (twitter.com/sergiynest) about:
* Developing an automated system for designing PCBs
* Difficulties in human and automated PCB design
* Building a startup at the intersection of different areas of expertise
By the way — I hit 40 ratings on Apple Podcasts (podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-gradient-per…) (and am at 66 on Spotify (open.spotify.com/show/6onNcSqsP6hEEqmZ6TU2g8)). It’d mean a lot (really, a lot) if you’d consider leaving a rating or a review. I read everything, and it’s very heartening and helpful to hear what you think.
Enjoy, and let me know what you think!
Sergiy is founder and CEO of Quilter. Sergiy spent 5 years at SpaceX developing radiation-hardened avionics for SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy's second stage rockets, before discovering a big problem: designing printed circuit boards for all the electronics in these rockets was tedious, manual and error prone. So in 2019, he founded Quilter to build the next generation of AI-powered tooling for electrical engineers.
I spend a lot of time on this podcast—if you like my work, you can support me on Patreon (patreon.com/DanielBashir?utm_medium=unknown&am…) :)
Reach me at editor@thegradient.pub for feedback, ideas, guest suggestions.
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Outline:
* (00:00) Intro
* (00:45) Quilter origins and difficulties in designing PCBs
* (04:12) PCBs and schematic implementations
* (06:40) Iteration cycles and simulations
* (08:35) Octilinear traces and first-principles design for PCBs
* (12:38) The design space of PCBs
* (15:27) Benchmarks for PCB design
* (20:05) RL and PCB design
* (22:48) PCB details, track widths
* (25:09) Board functionality and aesthetics
* (27:53) PCB designers and automation
* (30:24) Quilter as a compiler
* (33:56) Gluing social worlds and bringing together expertise
* (36:00) Process knowledge vs. first-principles thinking
* (42:05) Example boards
* (44:45) Auto-routers for PCBs
* (48:43) Difficulties for scaling to larger boards
* (50:42) Customers and skepticism
* (53:42) On experiencing negative feedback
* (56:42) Maintaining stamina while building Quilter
* (1:00:00) Endgame for Quilter and future directions
* (1:03:24) Outro
Links:
* Quilter homepage (quilter.ai/about)
* Other pages/features mentioned:
* Thin-to-thick traces (blog.quilter.ai/thin-to-thick-traces)
* Octilinear trace routing (blog.quilter.ai/octilinear-trace-routing)
* Comment (x.com/tomfleet/status/1758573819952820652?s=20) from Tom Fleet

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