Author Archives: M K

About M K

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Revolutionizing PCB Design

In the fast-paced world of electronics development, time is more than money—it’s your competitive edge. After years of working closely with engineering teams, we’ve heard the same challenge repeatedly: PCB design creates bottlenecks that slow down innovation.

That’s why we’re excited to announce our game-changing new application.

Our team has developed an intelligent PCB automation solution that transforms what traditionally takes days into a process completed in under an hour.

Automated PCB Flow diagram

Through advanced algorithms, we’ve created a system that handles placement and routing with minimal human intervention while maintaining complete design integrity. For more details visit AutoCuro

What makes this different?

Unlike conventional PCB design tools that require extensive manual work, our application intelligently analyzes your requirements and constraints to generate optimal layouts automatically. This isn’t just another iteration of existing tools—it’s a fundamentally different approach to PCB creation.
The system is particularly valuable for teams juggling multiple designs across various tools. No more waiting for specialized engineers to become available or dealing with design inconsistencies between team members.

Be among the first to transform your design process

We’re currently opening limited beta access to selected partners who understand the value of dramatically accelerated design cycles. Early adopters will have direct input into future features and priority support from our expert team.

Interested in cutting your PCB design time by up to 75%?

Visit our contact page to express your interest in the beta program. Our team will reach out personally to qualified applicants.
The future of PCB design is here—and it’s measured in minutes, not days.

Bringup of ESP32 Gateway Board

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Arduino

Introduction

Here is one more blog where the ESP32 Gateway bring up is displayed along with a video.

The ESP32 Gateway Board described here would be tested and its bring-up would be shown. Here is the block diagram of the board:

Block diagram gateway

Bringup Steps

Here are some of the bring-up steps followed for testing:
1. Visual inspection: Quick check to ensure that all components are soldered as per the orientation and visual shorts exist.
2. Power and clock check: Quick power test on the PCB to check for open short test. Using the multimeter to quickly test the 3.3V and 5V supply. The clock output from the oscillator was tested at 50Mhz.
3. USB connection: USB cable was connected to the J10 port. 5V and 3.3V supply was good on the board and coming at test points. Checked on oscilloscope to measure voltage ripple which is under 5%.
4. Reset check: The reset was asserted and de-asserted by TPS3895 as expected.
5. USB to UART connections: An external board was used to connect the ESP32 UART port to USB Port on the board.
6. ESP32 detection: The factory programmed ESP32 comes with the Wifi stack and can be easily detected as the WIFI host with the name ESP32. If the ESP32 is out of reset it would show esp32 wifi LAN which can be connected to. It again indicates it is alive and functional.
7. LED programming: Ardunio was selected to test the board as it is easy to program and most of the drivers are easily available. Programmed the LED program to test the led and also testing the programming sequence of JP1.
8. Switch detection: Next quick program which detects switch press and led lighting up.
9. Mounting the Click board: Mounted the ADXL345 accelerometer from Mikro Electronica on the click connector. The LED on accel click switches on and the supply stays stable for 3.3v and 5v.
10. Testing of i2c interface: Detected the device at 0x1d and 0x51. Read through the register values and moved the boards to check the accelerometer output.

i2c_scanner_Gatway

11. Testing of spi interface: Changed the Mikroe Accell click board to spi mode and tested the spi operation on the board using ESP32 module.
12. Testing other examples with esp32: The board was tested with other software examples specified at the Sparkfun website to check for power, operation, and functionality.
13. Testing of LAN8710 device. The device was detected using the MDC/MDIO pins. Ethernet cord was connected to the port and the activity led blink was observed. More tests are underway on the board.

Here is the link to the video of the board displaying power-up status detecting i2c devices on board and on module. The next video would contain some additional tests with ethernet port. Arduino code used with the esp32 rapid development click board is available at link.

Additional read:

Bringup of ESP32 Click Board

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Introduction

In this blog, we describe how are our boards are hardware tested after prototypes are available. This testing is done to ensure that the boards designed work and work as per requirements.

The ESP32 click Board described here would be tested and its bring-up would be shown. Here is the block diagram of the board:

ESP32 Block diagram

Bringup Steps

Here are some of the bring-up steps followed for testing:
1. Visual inspection: Quick check to ensure that all components are soldered as per the orientation and visual shorts exist.
2. Power check: Quick power test on the PCB to check for open short test. Using the multimeter to quickly test the 3.3V and 5V supply.
3. USB connection: USB cable was connected to the J10 port. 5V and 3.3V supply was good on the board and coming at test points. Checked on oscilloscope to measure voltage ripple which is under 5%.
4. Reset check: The reset was asserted and de-asserted by TPS3895 as expected.
5. FT232 Driver detection: The device was quickly found on the laptop and the driver was easily found on the web. This indicates that the USB to UART device ft232 is functioning correctly.
6. ESP32 detection: The factory programmed ESP32 comes with the Wifi stack and can be easily detected as the WIFI host with the name ESP32. If the ESP32 is out of reset it would show esp32 wifi LAN which can be connected to. It again indicates it is alive and functional.
7. LED programming: Ardunio was selected to test the board as it is easy to program and most of the drivers are easily available. Programmed the LED program to test the led and also testing the programming sequence of JP1.
8. Switch detection: Next quick program which detects switch press and led lighting up.
9. Mounting the Click board: Mounted the ADXL345 accelerometer from Mikro Electronica on the click connector. The LED on accel click switches on and the supply stays stable for 3.3v and 5v.
10. Testing of i2c interface: Detected the device at 0x1d. Read through the register values and moved the boards to check the accelerometer output.

i2c_device_detected

11. Testing of spi interface: Changed the Mikroe Accell click board to spi mode and tested the spi operation on the board using ESP32 module.
12. Testing other examples with esp32: The board was tested with other software examples specified at the Sparkfun website to check for power, operation, and functionality.
13. Testing of battery charging and functionality. The battery of 220mA was connected to the battery connector and charged. The voltage was measured on the port. Shortly afterward the battery-powered operation was tested.

Bring up and the testing of the board were fun and quite enriching as with each board it brings pleasure to see circuit tree platform getting mature.

Here is the link to the video of the board displaying power-up status reading accelerometer data from the module. Arduino code used with the esp32 rapid development click board is available at link

Additional read:

Custom ESP32 Board bringup with Ardunio

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Challenges:

Ever wondered how you would support the Arduino platform bring up when your custom board is different than the ExpressIF devC board. If you have just started working on the platform here are the top three challenges you would come across:
1. Arduino pin numbers mapping with board pins.

Ardunio maps the pins based on the GPIO’s of the ESP32. Many a time young engineers get stuck when they create software and it does not work.

2. Program and reset the assertion sequence on the board.

ESP32 needs the GPIO0 set to low so that ESP32 can enter in the program state. This is done at power-up and after programming, the GPIO0 pins need to be driven high.

Failed_to_connect_to_ESP32

3. Pins numbers different than Ardunio standard pins.

Ever wondered if the i2c pins or other function pins are different than the Arduino defined pins on board. For instance, esp32 assumes that the i2c pins are set at 5, 6 by default always. Most of the young engineers do wonder how they would connect the pins which in case of esp32 click board was on 22 and 23. For i2c the code attached can be used to quickly scan the i2c bus.

Additional read:

ESP32 Rapid Development Kit Design using Circuit Tree

ESP32 Gateway board

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Introduction:

ESP32 Gateway board is the second board designed using circuit tree application having following feature set:

ESP32D-WROOM Module used.
Mikro click connectivity on board. More details at https://www.mikroe.com/mikrobus
12V Power input for connecting DC jack.
10/100 Base T Ethernet port
USB to UART cable connector for connecting FTDI USB to UART cable.
Onboard regulators of 3.3v/5V along with control logic
Switch and LED’s to provide status.
4 layer design

The board has been designed autonomously by Circuit Tree application. This design has been added in Example 4 in app-circuit-tree.com and can be customized/modified with any changes desired.

Here are some of the screenshots of the top/bottom SVG renderings.

All_layers_gateway

esp32 gateway svg Top_Side

esp32 gateway svg Bot_layer

Fabricated Board

Assembled Board

Bring-up test is underway for the board. So far initial tests show no electrical failures. We did miss on the silkscreen but that is why we need to automate more so that errors are minimized.

Design files and Arduino test code is uploaded at the Github link.

Additional read:

Bring up of the esp32 gateway board.

Thanks

ESP32 rapid development click board

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Board objective:

Everybody likes rapid development kit. These boards should be easy to interconnect to a number of boards/shields and offer firmware to jump-start to start testing the idea.

What better to have click modules designed by Mikro-electronica which offers more than 500+ boards to connect any type of peripheral.

esp32 from express-if is another popular board that offers wifi/Bluetooth along with a number of peripherals bus to connect to a variety of devices.

Combining these two functions on the board boosts a number of different ideas that can be implemented with this board.

So introducing our new board named esp32 rapid development click board. The board has been designed using Circuit tree app autonomously except for some placement change and silkscreen updates which were done manually.

Here are some of the key features of the board:

ESP32D-WROOM Module used.
USB/Battery powered board
On-Board UART to USB function for debugging and programming.
Onboard regulators of 3.3v/5V along with control logic
Switch and LED’s to provide status.

Screenshots:

Here are some of the screenshots of the top/bottom SVG renderings.

esp32_click_module_all

esp32_click_module_Top_Side

esp32_click_module_back

esp32 rapid development board-PCB Fabrication -Top side

esp32_click_board_assembled

Design files Arduino test code are available at Github.

There is much more planned fun along with the board which would be shared in upcoming blogs.

This board is available on sale from our website.

Designing a board gives a lot of satisfaction and fills you with motivation to keep going. The happiness and motivation that we got from the project were boosted much more as it was not only the successful board bring up but it was the Circuit Tree application that was also tested.

I hope you are also able to share our joy.

Additional read:

Bring up of the esp32 click board.

STM32 Micro-python 1.1 board design

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Introduction:

We are big fan of Python as it is extensively been used on most of our development tasks. One of our colleagues mentioned to create a third board using circuit tree having micro-python running on it. That sounded like a cool idea.

pyboard1.1 (Link:Sparkfun)

We wanted to build the board having feature set similar to the micro python 1.1 board. The additional constraint was to even have the interfaces and the dimensions the same.

Using Circuit Tree the design was loaded using command line entry through schematic. The Circuit Tree application autonomously completed these different activities:

Interconnected the components specified in the requirement.
Selected power, clock, reset components
Selected discrete values needed by different components as per the electrical requirement.
Generated the clean and error free schematic
Accepted the board boundary which was the micro python form factor.
Completed board placement. This placement had to be modified as some some components were placed far off. So human intervention was done here.
Generated a two layer PCB design on it own. All the pcb routing, plane creation, Thick traces routing , length matching was autonomously. Here Human intervention was introduced to redo some traces. Human intervention was introduced to ensure that the design was correct.
Gerber files were generated by the app after the silk screen was updated by engineer working on the program.

Using BOM component links the components were ordered. So yes it was minimal human intervention and feels good looking at the task circuit tree application is now able to undertake.

It is a two layer design with pictures below displaying svg of all layers, bottom and top layers.

All_layers_pyboard1.1

Bottom side pyboard1.1

Top side pyboard1.1

And here is the PCB Fabricated using circuit tree application design:

Fabricated board

The board is now under pcb assembly. Waiting patiently to get the boards so that we can load the micro python the board.

The PCB has been in India and this is the third board from us. Lots of learnings along the way.

We dream for the day when we are able to design complex boards (6+ layers, 400+ components including BGA components) using Circuit Tree application under 3 hours of effort.

If board design is a pain point for you write back to us what you would like us to solve.

New Developments for custom PCB board designs

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New features and updates added in Circuit tree for your custom PCB Board designs:

Updated requirement editor which allows generation of variety of design using variety of components and blocks.
UI/UX improvements.
Placement engine update. The new engine is more efficient optimiser and produces placements and board outlines similar to a engineer on the project would do.
Layout creation. The engine can now generate 2/4/6 layer designs depending on the complexity or requirement defined. BGA/small pitch components are easily routed.
Designed three new boards complete with assembly. These boards have been autonomously designed at circuit tree with some manual help. It has been very useful and productive exercise.

More details of these boards in upcoming posts.

Various PCB board designs generated using Circuit tree app

Boards designed with circuit tree

Beautiful presentations with Prezi

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There are some applications available on the net which are fun to use. A Pdf /Powerpoint presentations can be fun but often we look for something different/creative. Here is one of my recent finds where a presentation can be made to be a movie. While trying to create a creative presentation i happen to create a roller coaster circuit tree movie. Well watch the Prezi presentation below to find out. The story covers a daily grind of a hardware engineer.

Write back with your comments at info@circuit-tree.com

Tip: Through setting bar change the auto movement to 10 second for best view.

Different types of IOT hardware

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IOT Introduction

IOT stands for Internet of things. IOT is network which connects small devices such as door bell , parking sensor and many more to the internet. This enables easy transfer and control of data between devices. There are certain factors which helped in the growth of IOT

Availability of low power and cost microcontroller/processor devices.
Development of low power radio’s
Availability of development boards having microcontroller/processors with components such as radio’s, sensors which are sold with industry specific application program.
Growth of big data and cloud computing.

Let us consider a interesting IOT use case of NEST. It is a intelligent thermostat found in Homes and connected to the cloud.

NEST IOT device [Link]

Here is how the NEST device typically operates:

IOT architecture	Board Hardware	Board software	Connectivity	Cloud	GUI
Hardware	Sensor Data	Microcontroller/Processor	Radio	IOT Gateway	Mobile/PC/Server
Task1
Monitor Temperature		Read sensor Data from temperature sensor	Transfer data to the cloud using RF protocols to communicate with gateway	Store data	Display data
		Send data to the cloud through the radio		Check data across the AI engine to understand the optimal temperature settings to keep.	Generate custom reports
		Display temperature data on the Display.		Check data across the AI engine to understand the optimal temperature settings to keep.	Generate custom reports
Task2
Temperature control				Change the room temperature of the AC/heater
Task3
Shutdown				Generate shutdown alerts.	Send alerts on the GUI.

Type of IOT Hardware

From the table above we can observe that two type of hardware boards are needed:

IOT modules/sensor Boards: These PCB boards typically have sensors, low power consuming micro controllers , radio’s , actuators, displays etc. They are typically powered through battery or make be connected to supply outlet. One of the most innovative IOT modules i admire is available at link with a video of its use case
IOT gateways: A gateway acts as a bridge between the IOT modules/sensor PCB boards and the cloud. Typical gateway boards would need to connect to multiple IOT sensor PCB boards while parsing the information and passing it to the cloud. Security of the data and the gateway is must to prevent misuse. The hardware typically contains:
1. Processor core running above 600Mhz core frequency. Having security engines to encrypt the data is a must. Must support the following interfaces
  1. DDR3/DDr4 Memories
  2. Ethernet connectivity ports such as RGMII/SGMII
  3. Radio modules
  4. Memories for firmware storage.
  5. Other peripherals as per the use case.

Challenges and Questions

To start creating different type of IOT hardware a designer should explore the following:

Are there any inexpensive starter kits available which contains all the devices and controller that he needs for the IOT sensor/gateway ?
What is the board power consumption, radio ranges, software stacks available?
Is the final board form factor the same as required in your application?
Can i reduce the cost of these starter kits if used in production?

and many more. More the number of questions you ask at the initial stage more it would define the product maturity.

Using the starter kits for testing may or may not work based on his needs being met with these boards. For instance look at the variety of IOT sensors available in the market and a quick survey would show that none of the starter kits can have plugin boards/shields with these sensor parts mounted on it. Production with these starter kits is not recommended due to cost and large form factor even through the hardware churn may be less.

How can circuit tree help?

There are numerous articles which states that designing hardware is hard. Not at Circuit Tree it is very easy for us and it is a couple of minutes job for us.

Typically in a board design cycle a engineer would iterate through the long human controlled steps to generate designs in months. At circuit tree we do things differently wherein a AI engine designs the hardware for you based on your bespoke requirements.

We have thousands of low power micro controllers, processors along with peripherals all in the perfect mix to help you generate a quick IOT hardware of any type.

Some of the sensor components and radio components in circuit tree library are listed below:

Device name	manufacturer	Type
lis2hh12	ST Microelectronics	accelerometer
mma8451q	NXP semiconductor	accelerometer
mpu9250	TDK InvenSense	accelerometer
adt7461	Analog Devices	temperature
hdc1080	Texas Instruments	humidity+temperature
l3g4200d	ST microelectronics	gryoscope+temperature
mpl3115a2	NXP semiconductor	pressure+temperature
si7006	Silicon Labs	humidity+temperature
si7034	Silicon Labs	humidity+temperature
si7051	Silicon Labs	temperature
tmp75b	NXP semiconductor	temperature
bmc150	Bosch Sensortec	compass
mag3110	NXP semiconductor	compass
bmc280	Bosch Sensortec	pressure
bmc250	Bosch Sensortec	gryoscope
tmd27711	AMS	ambient_light
m41t65	ST Microelectronics	rtc
pcf85063tp	NXP semiconductor	rtc
tsc2046	Texas Instruments	touch_controller
a2200	Maestro Wireless Solutions	GPS
M10382	Antenova	GPS

Circuit Tree identifier	Ordering Part number	Manufacturer	Type
cc3200	CC3200MODR1M2AMOBT	Texas Instrument	wifi module
esp8266	ESP8266-12E	Ai Thinker	wifi module
sn8000	88-00153-02	Murata	wifi module
mbh7blz02	MBH7BLZ02-109004	Fujitsu	Bluetooth
mr110ca	ATBTLC1000-MR110CA	Atmel/Microchip	Bluetooth
spbtle_rf	SPBTLE-RF	ST Microelectronics	Bluetooth
pn7120_module	OM5577	NXP semiconductor	NFC
a2500r24a	A2500R24A00GM	Anaren	2.4 Ghz radio
rfm75	RFM75-S	HopeRF	2.4 Ghz radio
etrx3587	ETRX3587	Telegesis	Zigbee
xbee_s2c	XB24CZ7UIS-004	Digi International	Zigbee

In the world of endless possibilities and number of hardware combinations circuit tree makes hardware development easy.

IOT PCB Hardware

Using the circuit tree requirements editor a IOT sensor/gateway PCB board can be easily created.

To get started on your PCB hardware idea design implementation head to the app. If you have come across innovative implementation of IOT hardware or need any custom development write to us at info@circuit-tree.com.