Text to PCB

From prompt to board, in four steps

1.You describe the board

Write what it needs to do in plain English — “an ESP32 sensor board with USB-C power, a LiPo charger and two Qwiic connectors.” No schematic to draw first.

2.The parts are chosen

PCBEditor reads your description and chooses real parts, such as a microcontroller, a regulator and connectors, for what the board must do. When a part's pin map cannot be verified, it asks you.

3.The board is built

The parts are wired, placed on a board with real dimensions and routed across layers, against hard clearance and width rules.

4.It checks the rules and exports

A design-rule check runs, unrouted nets are reported by name, and available exports include Gerber, drill, pick-and-place and BOM for engineering and fabrication review.

Why text to PCB actually works

A language model can propose a circuit, but clearance and connectivity must be checked against geometry. PCBEditor checks every board against the design rules and names any net it could not route. A check cannot verify every electrical, mechanical or manufacturing requirement, so review remains necessary before fabrication.

Meet Fortza, the AI model behind Text-to-PCB in PCBEditor. Fortza powers footprint generation, BGA ball-map generation and component-level design assistance in PCBEditor.

The questions worth asking

Is the board just made up by an AI?

No. A part is wired only when its pin map is verified, and the board is checked against the design rules before you see it. Those checks help expose layout problems, but they do not prove the circuit will function or that every part and footprint is correct.

Will it be the same every time?

For the routing, yes: the same design produces the same board.

What if it cannot finish a board?

It tells you. Instead of a completion percentage that hides failures, the check reports the exact nets it could not route, by name, so you know precisely what to adjust — usually a placement change.