ML driven PDN optimizing. Would be something applicable to ML, actually useful, and not a pie in the sky wankfest. X ASIC pins are defined as power, need <y milliohm upto n GHz impedance for them, and z transient response. Let it pick though a library of caps with parasitics modeled, then place and stitch them to power planes, and then optimize for lowest space, lowest cost, flattest response across all the pins, or whatever other metric.
... not sure you need an AI , can be done with simple loops. the computer speed we have now could try all combinations in a few seconds.
lol, you talk big about how PCB design is complex and uses field solvers so it’s not just heuristics and untangling…. but forget? PDN design/tuning is intimately tied to layout and PCB routing + stackup.
So we’ll take you down a peg and remind you that Engineers (your choice of distinction) do the work, and PCB is mostly accumulation of grunt work with little engineering when viewed even from your perspective.
Lots of PCB design time is a human doing untangling, shifting things around so it all fits. Computers will keep taking more of that work.
I’ll get back to damping planes by moving parts and shuffling copper to balance IR drops since the “PCB drafters” are a) not able to recognise the issues, and b) don’t have visibility on the requirements.
That last point is the bottleneck/impedance mismatch with designing PCBs. Many many many competing criteria, and trying to communicate the full set of requirements. When for most decisions in layout 99.9% of the list of requirements don’t apply, and on a multi person layout most of the workers won’t even need to know most of the requirements.
App notes or reference designs often err on the side of caution/conservative design so it can be blindly reused without thinking required. Dig a little deeper and all of a sudden half the decoupling capacitance disappears, and all those keep-out/unbroken-plane directives can be filled with (non aggressor) curcuitry. Time vs money, but some things can carry the investment. That is not buying more PCB layout/drafting but better input/instruction for them.