Diode AI Circuit Board Design & Build

Diode Computers, Inc. is a Brooklyn, New York company founded in 2024 and part of the Y Combinator Summer 2024 batch. It uses AI to automate printed circuit board design and offers design, fabrication and assembly in one place, so hardware companies can get the boards they need without coordinating separate design houses and manufacturers.

Customer requirements are turned into a schematic and layout written as code, which both an AI agent and Diode engineers can check. Designs are verified against the chosen fab's rules before boards are made, and parts are sourced and boards assembled in-house in Brooklyn, from prototypes to production. A self-serve option lets teams use the AI agent with a description, block diagram or KiCad project and get instant fab and assembly quotes, while an enterprise option has Diode's electrical engineers design the board with priority support and bring-up. Published designs include a 70 MHz to 6 GHz software-defined radio and a Jetson Orin NX carrier board.

• AI design agent: turns descriptions, block diagrams or KiCad projects into schematics and layouts.
• Design as code: schematics and layouts written as code reviewable by AI and engineers.
• Fab rule checks: designs validated against the fabricator's rules before production.
• In-house assembly: parts sourcing and assembly in Brooklyn from prototype to production.
• Enterprise design service: Diode engineers design boards with Slack support and bring-up.
• Open reference designs: BLDC motor controller, debug probe and Raspberry Pi CM5 carrier.

A Vietnamese robotics startup can commission a Jetson-based carrier board for an autonomous mobile robot without hiring a full PCB team. An R&D centre can use the self-serve agent to convert a block diagram into a first prototype. A design partnership could combine Diode's AI tooling with local EMS capacity for volume production.

Hardware teams get one accountable partner from requirements to assembled boards, cutting hand-offs between designers, fabs and assemblers. Code-based designs checked by both AI and engineers reduce errors before fabrication. Self-serve users receive instant fab and assembly quotes, and enterprise design work starts from a published price of 10,000 USD per design plus fab. Designs can be continued in standard tools such as KiCad.

Robotics, drones, edge AI and defence hardware startups need custom boards quickly, but senior PCB designers are scarce and design-to-manufacturing hand-offs are slow. AI-assisted design combined with integrated manufacturing is emerging as a faster route. Vietnam and Southeast Asia have growing robotics and IoT startups that face the same constraints when building first products.

Diode Computers, Inc. was founded in 2024 by Davide Asnaghi (CEO) and Lenny Khazan (CTO) and went through Y Combinator Summer 2024. It is based at 19 Morris Ave, Brooklyn, New York, and its Series A was led by Andreessen Horowitz. The company has published work with Anthropic on improving Claude for electrical engineering.