Changelog

Blind and Buried Vias

Support for blind and buried vias is in active development. Today Quilter routes through-vias only. This work unlocks HDI boards and other dense modern designs that depend on multi-tier via structures.

Choose any Impedance for Differential Pairs

What changed: You can now enter any target impedance for a differential pair instead of picking from the two values in the dropdown. Quilter also no longer forces differential impedance to equal exactly twice the single-ended impedance, so you can set, for example, a 50 ohm single-ended alongside a 90 ohm differential impedance. 

Why it matters: Differential impedance is a complex need driven by design factors, and the previous two-option dropdown didn't cover all values a user might want. Quilter solves for the trace geometry that hits whatever target you enter, using the Simbeor solver.

Where it is: In the Differential Pair section of the Comprehensions page

Floorplan Page [BETA]

What changed: There's a new Floorplan page, and the Placement Options section that used to live under Fabricator Constraints has been relocated to it.

Why it matters: The page exists to make Quilter's placement behavior explicit before you submit. The most common setup mistake we see is users who haven't floorplanned or pre-placed the components that need to be in a fixed position, then get surprised by Quilter’s actions. Surfacing placement intent up front prevents that from happening.

Where it is: In the usual setup flow, after Fabricator Constraints.

Note: This is only the first iteration of the Floorplan page; more changes including better visual explanations and interactivity will come soon.

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Support for Schematics from Cadence 

What changed: Quilter can now parse Cadence schematics alongside the board file, both generated by the Cadence export script. The full set of files Quilter now wants from Cadence is XML, QLT, DSN (the schematic), and BRD.

Why it matters: Several of Quilter's smarter behaviors, including bypass capacitor assignment and placement grouping, depend on having the schematic. Cadence users should see those improve now that the schematic comes through.

Where it is: Behind the scenes for people who upload files from Cadence.

Easily Find Any Unrouted Nets 

What changed: Any nets that failed to route now appear as a review item in the right sidebar (Design Review) of the candidate reviewer, below the other DRC review items.

Why it matters: Users have asked for this for a while. Until now the only way to spot what didn't route was to hunt through the airwires. Surfacing unrouted nets directly makes it fast to see exactly what's left, whether that's a few trivial signals to finish by hand or a sign the constraints need adjusting.

Where it is: The right sidebar of the candidate reviewer.

Clearance Constraints [BETA]

Quilter now reads net-class clearance rules, layer-specific clearances, and pair-specific clearances directly from your input files and respects them throughout placement and routing. This is the foundation for stronger DRC checks and higher-fidelity output. In the early beta version it happens silently, and there is a UI display of the detected constraints coming soon. Support for other ECADs is also under development.

How it works: This is now the automatic behavior for Altium files, though you won’t see a review in the UI.

Coverage: Altium Constraint Manager only, with other ECADs in the coming months.

Automated BGA Fanouts

Quilter now generates fanout and breakout for BGAs automatically as part of standard candidate generation. BGAs no longer need to be pre-fanned-out in your ECAD tool before submission.

How it works: Choose “Generate Fanout” in the BGA Component section of the Comprehensions page, and Quilter will select via patterns, escape directions, and breakout routing for each BGA on the board based on the stackup.

Coverage: BGAs with square ball patterns common on application processors and high-density connectors.

Why this matters: BGA fanout has been one of the most common parts of manual prep work customers did before submitting a board. Removing that step shortens setup and improves routing quality on dense designs, because Quilter is no longer routing around a fanout it didn't choose.

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Editable Impedance Constraints

You can now override Quilter's computed impedance constraints directly in the app. This makes it quick to use your own impedance values or update ours without going back to your ECAD tool to make changes.

This pairs with the calculated impedance profiles released in April. The default behavior is still to compute impedance from your stackup using Simbeor, but when you need a different value for a specific net, you can set it inside the job setup flow.

Docs: Single-ended Impedance Control, Differential Pairs

Stackup and Fab Constraint Setup Improvements

The job setup flow now surfaces stackup and fabricator constraints more explicitly. Each layer, material property, and fabrication rule that affects routing is visible in the setup screens, and the fab constraints are editable within the app. In the next week or two, layer assignments will also be editable. This continues the work started by the restructured setup flow in March: fewer parameters that get applied silently, more parameters you can see and adjust.

Docs: Stack-ups, Specify design parameters

Custom Component Proximity Constraints

A new constraint type for specifying that one component must sit close to a specific pin on another component. Available in Step 5.2 of the app under "Define your own constraints."

How it works: Select the restricted component, the parent component, the target pin on the parent, and the maximum allowed distance. Quilter applies the constraint during placement and verifies it in the physics rule check, the same way it handles every other placement constraint.

Why this matters: Some constraints (a current sense resistor next to a specific pin on a power IC, a snubber close to a specific FET pin) couldn't be expressed cleanly before. Customers either pre-placed those components themselves or routed the intent through the bypass cap flow. This adds a direct way to express component-to-pin proximity.

Related docs: Physics Constraints Overview, Placement regions

Calculated Impedance Profiles

Quilter can now calculate impedance profiles for differential pairs and single-ended impedance-controlled signals across all layers of your board, based on your stackup materials. Give Quilter any stackup on any board, and it will route using the trace widths and clearances needed to hit your target impedance.

The calculations are powered by Simbeor by Simberian, the industry-standard solver. If you’ve used impedance calculations in Altium, you’ve already used this solver. As long as the material properties in your stackup are correct, the impedance profiles will be correct.

Projects: Organized Iteration by Design

Jobs now belong to projects. A project groups every iteration of a single design (different board outlines, stackups, floor plans) into one place, so you can track your progress and pick up where you left off.

How it works: Create a new project from the home screen and upload your first job. From there, you can add as many jobs as you need, as long as each upload stays within 10% of the original BOM. Changes beyond 10% start a new project.

Why this matters: Most Quilter customers iterate 2 to 4 times on a design before going to fab. Projects make that workflow explicit: one design, unlimited iteration, everything in one place. This structure also lays the groundwork for faster solve times on subsequent iterations within the same project.

Previously submitted jobs are still accessible from your jobs list. Going forward, all new jobs require a project.

See the Project Documentation for setup details.

Ground Nets, Restructured Comprehensions, Single Stackup per Job

This release makes Quilter more explicit about how it interprets your board. New ground net comprehension and a restructured setup flow that surfaces constraints you may otherwise have missed. Single compile target ensures that you get the stackup and constraints you intended.

Ground Net Comprehension

You can now explicitly choose which ground net Quilter uses on your ground layers. Previously, Quilter made a calculated guess at the primary ground. That worked in most cases, but was a fallible assumption on boards with multiple ground domains.

This update also enables region ground pours. If you have a placement region where components share one ground net, Quilter can now establish an independent ground plane for that region. This is directly useful for isolation, high-voltage sections, and sensitive signal domains.

Restructured Setup Flow

The job setup flow has been restructured from two pages into four, with significantly more detail at each step. The new flow explicitly surfaces your stackup layers, power and ground assignments, and fabricator constraints. It also shows which specific constraints Quilter has calculated from your inputs, like what net width will be used to meet IPC2221 heating requirements on each layer for a high power net with a known current.

The goal: reduce the chance that something gets misconfigured silently. Every parameter that affects routing quality is now visible and editable before you submit.

Single Stackup per Job

Until now Quilter has attempted many stackups and design constraints within each job. This can be useful for exploring possible solutions, but most of the time you know what parameters are required. Including the many stackups made it more awkward to define as single one clearly, and this change supports the improvements listed above in Restructured Setup Flow. Now you’ll have better control and clarity of how Quilter will construct your board.

New Candidate Reviewer!

Looking at your routed boards is even easier with the new full screen redesign. The “Detail View” mode has consumed all the panels and become the default, so now it’s easy to see everything at once without switching around. The redesign also works well on large monitors.

Our theme for 2025 was: User Design Intent.

Specifically: preserving the intent you already expressed in your ECAD tool and carrying it all the way through placement and routing without forcing you to over-configure or babysit the process.

We shipped four pillar updates last year: power pour generation, regions and smart clustering, stackup import, and keepout updates. Together, these changes reduce ambiguity in how the system interprets your board and materially improve routing quality, EMI behavior, and predictability.

Automated power pour generation

Power pours—large copper quilter-filled areas tied to a specific power net — provide a low-impedance path for current, reducing voltage drop and heat, but have historically been a tedious, manual process in traditional CAD tools. 

Quilter handles the entire workflow automatically: it detects likely power nets by name, prompts you to select which ones to pour, optimizes component placement to improve pour continuity, generates filled copper regions that respect spacing and keep-out rules, and runs physics rule checks on trace width and current capacity—all as part of standard candidate generation with no extra manual steps.

Regions + Smart Clustering (Placement Intent)

You can now define placement regions directly in your ECAD tool and have them respected on import. Regions act as geometric constraints for placement, collecting components that must stay together, stay local, or stay isolated. Regions can be single-sided or two-sided, which is particularly important for dense designs and mixed-signal boards where vertical separation is just as intentional as horizontal grouping.
Quilter has also introduced smart clustering, where components that are directly connected within a schematic are placed close together.

Another new feature is “anchoring”, which allows you to place a single component from a cluster and have all the other components from the cluster snap to it, saving you time in manual placement.

See the Placement Guide to learn more!

Stackups Imported From Input Files

On import, Quilter reads stackup and design requirements directly from your input files. That means: layer order is preserved, dielectric context is known, design rules are reflected in minimum trace width, via size, etc

Keepouts (Mechanical & RF Constraints)

Keepouts are now first-class constraints and support any combination of traces, vias, components, and pours. You can define keepout regions in your ECAD tool to: protect antennas, reserve mechanical space, block routing under sensitive ICs, and respect your component internal areas.

On import, Quilter respects these regions and enforces them during placement and routing.

This is a high-visibility, high-value feature because it prevents entire classes of late-stage failures like EMI problems, RF degradation, and undesirable placement before they start. Behind the scenes, this work lays the foundation for broader design rule ingestion, including full clearance constraint support and stronger DRC checks coming soon.