Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) – AI Assisted PCB Design to Increase Productivity and Efficiency

Los Alamos National Laboratory’s ISR-4 division (Space Electronics and Signal Processing) designs advanced sensors and electronics systems that must operate in extreme environments, including high radiation and space. As part of a federally funded research and development center, their mission is to deliver reliable, cutting-edge technology for national needs.

To accelerate development, improve design quality, and reduce manual engineering burden, LANL evaluated Circuit Mind’s AI-powered hardware design automation platform. At the conclusion of their evaluation they published this peer-reviewed case study of their findings.

Here are the key takeaways from their report:

LANL’s Challenge: Accelerating Complex PCB Design Under High Constraints

LANL engineers frequently develop sophisticated PCB systems with complex requirements across power domains, memory, peripherals, and communication interfaces. Their traditional workflow requires:

• Deep manual schematic capture
• Manual component selection
• Repetitive verification tasks (power, derating, stress, FMEA templates, etc.)
• Lengthy design iterations and reviews

Because of the complexity and precision required, manual design time often ranges between 60–80 hours for medium-difficulty boards, and up to 160+ hours for high-complexity boards.

The engineering team wanted to know:

Could AI-assisted BoM generation, schematic generation, and reporting meaningfully reduce design time, without compromising engineering quality?

For the evaluation, the LANL team selected two designs – a Medium-Difficulty Design and a High-Difficulty Design. Engineers received platform training and completed both designs entirely inside Circuit Mind’s ACE platform.

Tackling a Medium-Difficulty PCB Design with Automation

The medium-complexity evaluation included a microcontroller-based system with memory, peripherals, audio, LEDs, RTC, CAN, RS-232, and a full power tree.

Circuit Mind’s platform reduced a 60–80 hour design to just 4 hours and 13 minutes, representing a ~95% time saved on the baseline used.

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Benchmarking

• Typical Time Spent on Manual Design: 60 – 80 hours
• Time Spent with Circuit Mind: 4 hours 13 minutes
  
  • 𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒 = 𝑆𝑒𝑡𝑢𝑝 𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒 + 𝑆𝑜𝑙𝑣𝑒 𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒 + 𝑀𝑎𝑛𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑃𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝐴𝑢𝑡𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒
• Circuit Mind Completion Percentage: 90%
• Manual Engineer Completion Percentage: 10%

Breakdown of Time with Circuit Mind

• Setup (Block Diagram Creation): 35 minutes
• Automated Solve (Schematic, BoM, Reports): 8 minutes
• Manual Post-Automation Tasks: 3.5 hours
• Total design time with Circuit Mind: 4 hours 13 minutes

Report Generation Time Saved

The following reports were automatically generated by Circuit Mind, saving the engineering team over over 1 months and three weeks of manual reporting tasks.

Design Review Findings

Engineers found that 90% of the design was correct and complete. Only minor manual corrections were required:

• Manual resistor value adjustments for LEDs
• A missed 5V rail connection on the Micro-AB connector

Tackling a High-Difficulty PCB Design with Automation

The high-difficulty board included an FPGA, DDR4 memory, HDMI & DisplayPort transceivers, Ethernet PHY & magnetics, PCIe, FMC connector, power sequencing and multiple power domains

Even though ~80 hours of manual ECAD work remained, due to components not supported in the evaluation phase, LANL still reported 60–80 hours saved on schematic generation, power tree generation, reporting, and component selection.

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Benchmarking

• Typical Time Spent on Manual Design: 60 - 80 hours
• Time Spent with Circuit Mind: ~80 hours
  
  • 𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒 = 𝑆𝑒𝑡𝑢𝑝 𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒 + 𝑆𝑜𝑙𝑣𝑒 𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒 + 𝑀𝑎𝑛𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑃𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝐴𝑢𝑡𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒
• Circuit Mind Completion Percentage: 50%
• Manual Engineer Completion Percentage: 50%

Breakdown of Time with Circuit Mind

• Setup: 1 hour
• Automated Solve: 25 minutes
• Manual Post-Automation Tasks: ~80 hours
• Total design time with Circuit Mind: ~80 hours

Report Generation Time Saved

The following reports were automatically generated by Circuit Mind, saving the engineering team over 300 hours of manual reporting tasks.

Design Review Findings

Some manual fixes were required, including:

• Completing FPGA, HDMI, DisplayPort, DDR4 wiring
• Removing redundant pullups
• Fixing exposed pad connection
• Adding magnetics to Ethernet connecto

Benefits and Limitations Identified by LANL

Benefits:

• Completed full medium design in under 1 hour of automated generation
• Saved 60 - 80 engineering hours across both designs
• Useful for early architecture exploration and trade-off evaluation
• Automatically generates FMEA, ICD, Derating, Power, and Procurement reports
• First-time-right respin avoidance can prevent 1-month project delays

Limitations:

• Unsupported components require virtual block substitution
• Major ICs (FPGA, DDR4, HDMI, etc.) still require manual wiring
• Over-constraining a design can reduce automation success

Conclusion from LANL

After evaluating both PCB designs, LANL determined:

“The platform could work in our PCB production flow.”

Circuit Mind’s automation delivered significant time savings, improved consistency, and helped engineers focus their time on higher-value design tasks.

Download the Peer-Reviewed LANL Case Study

Get the full LANL-authored research report, including methodology, diagrams, and engineering insights.

Download the full LANL case study (PDF)

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