Start with a schematic
Quilter is specifically and exclusively focused on automating circuit board layout. To get started with Quilter, design your schematic in your ECAD tool of choice.
Support for Altium and KiCAD
Quilter currently supports Altium and KiCAD file formats. All completed layouts are returned in the same native file format in which they were received.
Schematic-informed placement
Quilter uses direct and implicit connections between components in your schematic to inform component placement. This helps our design agent create logical component groupings that are easy to parse and understand.
Prepare your board file
The board file is the most important input that you provide to Quilter. It is the instruction set that tells Quilter which components to place, which traces to route, and what design features to leave alone.
Define your board outline
Start by defining the boundary of the board in which you’d like for Quilter to work.
Place your connectors
We encourage users to place any connectors or other components with mechanical constraints that Quilter’s design agent is not aware of.
Upload your files
Start a new layout job and drag/drop your compatible board file and supporting schematics into Quilter’s web interface.
Quilter handles the rest
All components that are left outside of the board outline will be placed and routed by Quilter’s design agent. Quilter will not modify the location of any components or traces within the designated board outline.
Define your design constraints
Defining design constraints ensures that Quilter produces an optimized design that works well once it is manufactured.
Constraints manager
Quilter includes a constraints manager tool that allows you to import, define, and review constraints that the design agent will respect when creating your circuit board layout.
Scope for pins, nets, and net classes
Quilter automatically ingests your net list so you can define constraints by pin, by pin net, or net class.
Constrain by trace width or amperage
Define individual trace widths directly (mm/mils) or using rated currents (mA or A). Quilter will automatically calculate appropriate trace widths for the designated max current.
Import from previous jobs
Constraint sets can be easily named and imported from a previous job using the constraint manager interface for reuse with future builds.
Quilter’s design agent does its thing
Once a job is kicked off, Quilter’s design agent goes to work to explore and optimize from millions of discrete placement, routing, and stackup combinations under the hood.
Results in minutes or hours
Depending on the complexity of the board, Quilter can produce successful designs in as little as 10-20 minutes.
Ready for fabrication
Quilter only considers a design to be successful it is is 100% placed and routed, contains 0 DRC violations, and can be successfully manufactured at current design tolerances.
Checked against top fabs
Quilter produces many solutions of each board request at varying specifications (ex: min trace/via widths) to identify the most conservative design that is broadly manufacturable against top PCB fabricators.
Review, select, and download your favorite
Once a job is complete, Quilter provides you with an overview of the solution space to help you identify and select the best board design for fabrication.
Recommended designs
Quilter automatically surfaces the best designs across several design characteristics (# layers, total trace length, etc) for you to review.
View all candidates
Quilter provides access to all designs that it explored, including those that failed to complete. Use the design explorer to sort and filter designs by their design attributes for additional review.
Download and fab
Any candidate can be downloaded in the same native file format that it was uploaded in, so you can make tweaks, run your own DRC, and export gerber files to submit for manufacturing.
