Show HN: Copperhead – Hardware as Fast as Software

aanimeshchouhan about 2 hours ago 30 commentsRead Article on copperhead.sh

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82% Positive

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Discussion (30 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

aitchnyu•3 minutes ago

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.

mikeayles•about 1 hour ago

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)

Aurornis•18 minutes ago

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

Stay away from Reddit and forums if you want to see where the open minded people are looking. There are a lot of communities where EEs are experimenting with newer technologies and sharing their results, with realistic appraisals of what can be done.

You also need to understand the history of autorouting technology for PCBs. Autorouters with auto layout have been around in many forms for years. Their output never compares to a skilled EE doing it manually. The gap between autorouter output and skilled operator output is even bigger than the gap between a good developer and average AI codegen slop.

I’m interested in this space, but even the Fable/Astra or dedicated tools like Quilter, Flux, and others have a very, very long way to go for boards more complex than simple hobby boards.

I do think this is going to be good for hobby people doing simple PCBs though

Joel_Mckay•11 minutes ago

NP-hard problems are still NP-hard even with magical LLM pixie sprinkles. =3

jimberlage•about 1 hour ago

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".

tylergetsay•about 1 hour ago

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

seidleroni•about 1 hour ago

It seems like this is just controlling KiCad. Assuming this produces a BOM as well, you could take the output files, send them to a board house like PCBWay or JLPCB and get the boards stuffed and shipped to you.

The board houses may have questions for you that may be difficult for you to answer, but theoretically you could answer those with AI and get fully assembled boards delivered right to your doorstep.

animeshchouhan•41 minutes ago

not quite. copperhead operates on its own hardware IR, compiles verified KiCad files and generates manufacturing outputs.

we're also building a design house around it to close the loop with fabs, handle DFM questions and eventually let you hit "order" and receive fully assembled boards!

animeshchouhan•about 1 hour ago

soon :)

danielmorozoff•about 1 hour ago

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

ajnin•about 1 hour ago

Copperhead directly edits the KiCad files so that is the CLI version of that Astra demo.

animeshchouhan•about 1 hour ago

not quite. copperhead operates on its own IR, which then compiles to KiCad files.

TechSquidTV•about 1 hour ago

This is what I want to know as well. I'm about to kick off a project or two.

animeshchouhan•about 1 hour ago

we're developing https://copperbench.org - an open-source benchmark for evaluating ai agents on real, verifiable hardware design tasks.

anirudhojhaanil•about 1 hour ago

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

mattanimation•23 minutes ago

look inside, sees typescript, walks away.

fwip•35 minutes ago

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

"Nothing commits without its gate."

motoboi•about 1 hour ago

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

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

Joel_Mckay•9 minutes ago

LM555 or 300MB nodejs App on a $300 SoC... the choice is clear... lol =3

FacelessJim•about 1 hour ago

I’ve read it the same way. Definitely a double edged slogan.

Tiberium•about 1 hour ago

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

tadasv•about 2 hours ago

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

animeshchouhan•about 1 hour ago

copperhead isn't just a wrapper around claude or gpt. it combines model intelligence with its own hardware IR, deterministic engines and continuous verification.

j16sdiz•20 minutes ago

User just couldn't care less.

Do it have extra feature? Speed? Ease of use?

guhidalg•about 1 hour ago

Some PM realized that agents will not push back against waterfall style project planning, so now we get an agent for all possible versions of waterfall projects.

animeshchouhan•about 1 hour ago

fair critique but copperhead works as a feedback loop: design, verify, revise and repeat. closer to an engineering control loop than waterfall with an agent on top :)

TechSquidTV•about 1 hour ago

Is it doing any circuit simulation or anything?

toss1•about 1 hour ago

When it gets to the end of the design loops, can it run simulations and tests, or is that out of scope i.e., for another product? (I didn't notice testing on a very quick peruse, but that doesn't mean I didn't simply miss it)

electric_mayhem•about 1 hour ago

I use a jigsaw to cut wood. It works pretty good. What’s the point of a table saw?

mitxela•about 1 hour ago

You joke but my coping saw cuts wood much faster than any of my normal saws. I don't know a lot about saws, I presume it's the type of blade on it. And I do indeed have three saws, which is a lot for someone who doesn't know much about saws. One that says it's good for cutting metal, one for wood and one for tight corners in wood (a coping saw).