Trace puts AI agents on the circuit board: schematic, placement, and routing in a desktop app built on KiCad. The enclosure, the firmware, and the wire harnesses stay in other tools. Flux designs the complete device in one live project in your browser. The AI engineer does the electronics, the mechanical parts, and the firmware, and your team reviews the work together.
Flux is an AI hardware engineer for your whole team. Give it a requirement for a device. It writes the specification, picks the parts, draws the schematic, and routes the board. It also designs the mechanical parts, writes the firmware, and designs the wire harnesses. It checks its work with simulation and design rule checks, and gives your engineers files that are ready to manufacture.
Trace is AI-native PCB design software from WishEDA Inc. Its AI agents work through the board workflow: block diagram, schematic, datasheets, part selection, placement, routing, design rule checks, and Gerber files.[1]
Trace is a desktop app built on KiCad, for Windows, Linux, and macOS. The Trace Plugin brings the same agent into Altium Designer and KiCad.[5]
Trace has pay-as-you-go credits and monthly Pro and Ultra plans, with team and enterprise plans.[2]
You describe the circuit, and Trace makes a block diagram and a hierarchical multi-sheet schematic from it.[1]
The Trace Plugin connects the Trace agent to the project that is open in Altium Designer or KiCad 10. It reads and edits the schematic and the board in that tool.[3]
Trace tunes matched lengths for DDR, USB, and PCIe signals, with length groups and a live overlay of each net.[1]
Trace makes the AI part of the board design. Flux makes the AI the engineer for the whole device. The Flux AI engineer turns your requirement into a specification, picks from 734,000+ public parts with live distributor data, draws the schematic, and routes the board, including rigid-flex boards and projects with several boards. In the same project, it designs the mechanical parts around the board, from an enclosure to a complete robot arm, writes the firmware, and designs the wire harnesses between the boards. It checks its work with circuit, electromagnetic, thermal, and mechanical simulation, and gets quotes for boards, 3D printing, CNC machining, and harnesses. Flux runs in your browser, so there is nothing to install, and your whole team works in one live project.
| Feature | Flux | Trace |
|---|---|---|
| Requirements and specification | The AI engineer turns your idea into requirements and a product specification, and checks the design against them. | Turns your description into a circuit block diagram and a schematic.[1] |
| What it is | AI hardware engineer for the complete device, with its own design tools | AI-native PCB design software, built on KiCad[5] |
| Where it runs | In your web browser. There is nothing to install, and your projects are in the cloud. | Desktop app for Windows, Linux, and macOS that you install, plus a plugin for Altium Designer and KiCad[1] |
| Who does the design work | The Flux AI engineer. Your engineers review and edit its work. | Trace AI agents in Ask, Agent, and Plan modes. Your engineers review and edit.[9] |
| Schematic and parts | Built in. The AI engineer picks from 734,000+ public parts. | Hierarchical multi-sheet schematics from a description, with KiCad libraries and Trace parts[1] |
| Board layout and routing | Built in | PCB editor built on KiCad, for boards with up to 32 layers[1] |
| Placement and routing | The AI engineer places the parts and routes the board like an experienced designer. Your engineers review and edit. | Automated placement and routing, with cloud routing for complex boards[1] |
| High-speed design | The AI engineer routes differential pairs, tunes lengths, and sets trace impedance from your stackup. Your engineers review and edit. | Matched length tuning for DDR, USB, and PCIe signals[1] |
| Flex and rigid-flex boards | Built in. Named stackups for rigid and flex areas, coverlay and stiffeners, hatched flex pours, bending lines with a folded 3D view and folded STEP files, flex design checks, and Gerber, ODB++, and IPC-2581 files. The AI engineer routes each area on its own layers. | Not in Trace[1] |
| Parts and sourcing | 734,000+ public parts, with live prices and stock from distributors | KiCad libraries and Trace parts, with stock and prices from Nexar[1] |
| Simulation and design rule checks | SPICE, electromagnetic, thermal, and mechanical simulation, with design rule checks | Schematic simulation with SPICE models, plus ERC and DRC[6] |
| Firmware | Writes, builds, and tests the firmware for the board that it designed | Writes firmware handoff notes for the engineer or the coding tool that writes the firmware[7] |
| Wiring harnesses | Built in. Flux designs the wiring harnesses between the boards: connectors, pinouts, and wires, in the same project. | Not in Trace[1] |
| Manufacturing files | Gerber, ODB++, IPC-2581, bill of materials, pick-and-place, and more | Gerber, ODB++, IPC-2581, drill, bill of materials, pick-and-place, and STEP files[1] |
| Quotes and orders | Quotes and orders for boards, 3D printing, CNC machining, and wire harnesses, from the project. | Orders boards from JLCPCB or PCBWay[1] |
| Import from other tools | Imports complete projects from Altium, OrCAD and Allegro, KiCad, PADS and Xpedition, CADSTAR, Eagle, Fusion Electronics, EasyEDA, DipTrace, and SOLIDWORKS PCB. Flux imports Labcenter Proteus SDF netlists with Specctra board exports. IPC-2581 revision B and C files become board projects with reusable footprint parts. | Opens KiCad projects. Imports Altium Designer, Cadence Allegro, Mentor PADS, and gEDA designs.[4] |
| Versions, branches, and merges | Full change history. The AI engineer forks a design into a second version, keeps both, and merges the changes that you pick. | Local snapshots of AI edits, and team workspaces with commit, push, and pull[8] |
| Team knowledge and rules | Written once for the whole organization. Every AI engineer applies it on every project, and Flux checks every design against your rules. | TraceRules teach the AI your design conventions.[1] |
| Who reviews the work | The whole team, in one live project in the browser: electrical, layout, mechanical, and firmware engineers | Your engineers review the design in the Trace desktop app, or in Altium Designer or KiCad[3] |
| Price | See current pricing | Pro at $29.99 per month, Ultra at $169.99 per month, or pay-as-you-go credits[2] |
| Plus the mechanical parts too | ||
| Mechanical CAD | Built in and kernel agnostic. From an enclosure to a complete robot arm, fitted to the real board. | Imports an enclosure as DXF or STEP to keep the board and the case aligned[1] |
| Mechanical simulation | Finite-element stress, thermal, and airflow simulation | Not in Trace[1] |
| Mechanical manufacturing | STEP, STL, and 3MF files, plus quotes for 3D printing, CNC machining, sheet metal, and laser cutting | Not in Trace[1] |
| CNC toolpaths and G-code | The AI engineer writes the toolpaths, the G-code, a toolpath preview, and a setup sheet for the parts that it designed. | Not in Trace[1] |
Flux places the parts and routes the board like an experienced designer, and it respects your design intent and your layout rules.
Flux picks from 734,000+ public parts. It checks live prices and stock across distributors before it puts a part on the board.
Flux checks every board against your layout rules and the capabilities of your fabricator.
Flux reads the datasheet of every part and checks the design against its pinouts, ratings, and limits.
Export your Trace design as a KiCad project and import it into Flux. Ask the AI engineer to change the board, design the enclosure around it, and write the firmware. Then go to production: Flux makes the files that your fabricators need.
Example request
“Design an enclosure for this board with cutouts for the USB-C port and the status LEDs, then write the firmware for the sensor interface.”
Altium Designer 
OrCAD and Allegro 
KiCad 
PADS, Xpedition, and NX 
CADSTAR 
Eagle and Fusion 
EasyEDA 
SolidWorks 
CATIA 
Creo 
Onshape Import complete projects, part libraries, and 3D models. Schematics, parts, and placement come across, and routing from most formats.
Imported designs are ready to edit right away. Ask "move the USB cutout 3 cm left" or "make the enclosure tighter", and Flux does the work.
Flux hands you the files that your manufacturer needs: Gerber, ODB++, IPC-2581, bill of materials, and pick-and-place for the board, and STEP, STL, or 3MF for the mechanical parts.
Orchestration
Hand Flux a complete product. The lead AI engineer splits it into workstreams, starts parallel threads across projects, manages them, and reports back.
Each workstream runs in its own agent thread. The main board, the daughterboards, and the enclosure come together at the same time.
The lead engineer starts work in other projects and tracks it all from one place.
It monitors every thread, steers work that goes off the brief, and collects the results.
Changes that move an interface or resize a board wait for your approval.
Flux writes a brief for each board with its outline, mounting holes, connectors, and the enclosure openings they line up with. Each board gets its own project and its own AI engineer, and all three are designed in parallel. Flux then places the finished boards in the main assembly and measures clearances and connector alignment in millimeters.
Verification lab
Flux doesn't stop at generating designs. The AI engineer simulates and checks its own work with professional-grade solvers, and it shows you the results.
SPICE simulation of analog, power, and mixed-signal circuits, with Monte Carlo, temperature sweep, and noise analysis, run and read by the AI engineer.
Full-wave simulation of the routed board: signal integrity, power integrity, impedance, S-parameters, crosstalk, and antennas.
Electrical and manufacturing rule checks on every schematic and board.
Reads the datasheet of every part and checks the design against its pinouts, ratings, and limits.
Flux runs PCB thermal analysis of the routed board at stated operating powers, plus heat and airflow simulation of the enclosure, before you build.
Airflow and cooling through the enclosure, so vents, fans, and heat sinks work before the first prototype.
Finite-element stress analysis of brackets, enclosures, and mounts.
Sourcing
Flux connects directly to major electronics and mechanical parts distributors. The AI engineer picks chips, connectors, screws, and standoffs that are in stock, compares prices across distributors, and replaces parts that are at end of life before the product goes to production.
Digi-Key 
LCSC 
Mouser 
Arrow 
Verical 
TME 
HQonline 
McMaster-Carr 
MISUMI 
JLCMC Manufacturing
Flux gets quotes directly from the fabricators for circuit boards and assembly, 3D printing in plastic and metal, CNC machining, sheet metal, laser cutting, injection molding, casting, and wiring harnesses. The AI engineer compares price and lead time, checks the design against each fabricator's rules, keeps the quote current as the design changes, and places the order when you confirm.
JLCPCB 
PCBWay 
OSH Park 
AISLER 
Craftcloud JLC 3D printing PCBWay 3D printing 
Shapeways 
OSH Cut 
SendCutSend 
MiniProto Flux gives each area of the board a rigid or flex stackup, with coverlay and stiffeners. It adds bending lines, shows the folded board in 3D, and checks the bend radius.
One Flux project holds several PCB layouts that share one schematic. A net can connect a main board and its daughterboards, and Flux routes and exports each board.
Flux runs full-wave simulation of the routed board: signal integrity, power integrity, impedance, S-parameters, crosstalk, and antennas.
In the same project, Flux designs the enclosure and the other mechanical parts, writes the firmware, and designs the wire harnesses.
Several engineers edit the same project in the browser at the same time. Nobody sends files by email or asks which version is the latest.
The Flux library has 734,000+ public parts with symbols, footprints, 3D models, and datasheets. You do not build a part library before you start.
One platform
Flux is not a collection of disconnected CAD applications. It is one AI-native engineering platform where every discipline shares the same project, the same data, and the same AI engineer.
Parametric enclosures, brackets, and mounts, fitted to the real board's mounting holes and connectors. Bring in your own STEP models. One parts library for the whole product: chips and connectors, devices that are not on the board, and mechanical hardware such as screws and standoffs.
Firmware for the board Flux designed, for example on Arm Cortex-M, RISC-V, AVR, or Pico, then built, analyzed, and unit tested.
Model-agnostic AI
Flux pairs frontier AI models with a state-of-the-art agent harness built for CAD and EDA. The models bring reasoning. Flux brings the engineering tools, project context, and workflows that turn that reasoning into working hardware.
Adaptive splits every engineering job into tasks and gives each task to the model that does it best for the price. Hard design decisions go to frontier models. Routine work goes to fast, low-cost models. Independent tasks run in parallel, so complete devices come together faster. Your team works with one AI engineer, and Flux handles the delegation behind the scenes.
Work with the frontier models your team already trusts, inside Flux.
Every model gets Flux's specialized engineering tools, project context, and workflows.
When a better model ships, your team gets it without switching engineering platforms.
Avoid depending on any one model provider for your engineering capacity.
Adaptive matches each engineering step to the model that does it best, from deep design decisions to routine checks.
See current pricing
Trial terms depend on your current offer.
See current pricing
Trial terms depend on your current offer.
See current pricing
Trial terms depend on your current offer.
See current pricing
Teams subscriptions start paid.
Eligible individual plans include a free trial. Teams subscriptions start paid; trial and pricing terms depend on your current offer. See all plans
Choose Trace if your team wants AI help with PCB design in a desktop app built on KiCad, or inside Altium Designer and KiCad. Choose Flux if you want an AI engineer to design the complete device, with the board, the mechanical parts, and the firmware in one project, while your engineers review the results.
Explore individual plan offers, or book a demo with our team.
