Physical Design

Physical design in JITX bridges the gap between your circuit code and a manufacturable PCB. Once your circuit graph is defined, JITX provides an interactive layout environment where you place components, route traces, and refine the physical implementation of your design.

JITX uses a hybrid approach: placement and routing can be specified in code for repeatability, or adjusted interactively in the board view. Code-defined placements create a kinematic tree where groups of components move together, while interactive placements allow fine-tuning during layout. The topological autorouter finds optimal trace paths while respecting design rules and signal integrity constraints.

This series covers the physical design capabilities in JITX:

1. Kinematic Tree - Component placement hierarchy and code vs interactive placement

2. Autorouter - Topological routing, manual routing, and route behavior

3. Pours - Copper fills for power planes, ground planes, and thermal management

Physical Design

• Kinematic Tree
• Code Placement
  • Frame of Reference
  • Board Side
• Interactive Placement
• Proxy Placement
  • Proxy-only Move
  • Proxy Move
  • Proxy Chain Move
• Code Examples
  • Placement Method Comparison
  • Hierarchy Example
• Topological Autorouter
  • Basic usage: autorouting
  • Basic usage: manual routing
  • Inner Workings
    • Topological Routes and Rubber Band Equivalents
  • Basic behavior: repositioning
  • Route settings in the UI
  • Shapes and routes
    • Ends of routes
    • Overlapping object shapes
  • Control points and SI routing
  • When things go wrong
    • Autorouter refuses to make obvious routes
    • Autorouter uses a bad routing strategy
• Pours
  • Input shapes and computed shapes
  • Code Placed Pours Example
  • Dynamic Pours Example
  • Pour shape computation details
  • Pour limitations
  • Pour behaviors tidbits