49 lines
4.2 KiB
Markdown
49 lines
4.2 KiB
Markdown
# Pinscope
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Pinscope reviews schematics the way a good senior engineer does: with the datasheets open.
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<!-- ── demo screenshot / GIF ──────────────────────────────────────────
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<p align="center">
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<img src="frontend/public/report.png" width="760" alt="A Pinscope review, findings cited to datasheet pages">
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</p>
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─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── -->
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Give it a netlist, a BOM, and your datasheet PDFs. It builds a graph of your design, reads each IC's datasheet, and checks the circuit around every part against what the manufacturer actually specifies — reference application, pin functions, absolute maximums, recommended operating conditions. Every finding points at the datasheet page that backs it up, so you can judge the call yourself instead of trusting a black box.
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The reason it exists: ERC passes boards that don't work. Your EDA tool has no idea that the CH340E you powered from 5 V drives its TXD at 4.5 V into an MCU pin that maxes out at 3.6 V, or that the net you labeled `UART5_TX` lands on a pin whose alternate-function table only offers `UART5_RX`, or that the LDO's bypass pin you left floating costs you an order of magnitude in output noise. None of that is an electrical *rule* violation. All of it is in the datasheet, and nobody has time to re-read 400 pages per part on every revision.
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## How it works
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1. **Parse** the BOM (CSV/XLSX) and netlist (PADS-PCB `.asc` or EDIF 2.0.0 `.edn` — exportable from KiCad, Altium, OrCAD, Allegro, Xpedition, EasyEDA, Eagle) into a queryable bipartite graph of components and nets.
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2. **Extract** pin tables and specs from the PDFs. Large datasheets are trimmed to the relevant pages first, and every extraction is cached in a shared library, so a given part number is only ever processed once.
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3. **Review** each IC in isolation. The model gets the trimmed datasheet plus that IC's circuit neighborhood, can query the graph (`find_connected_components`, `get_net_for_pin`, `get_pintable`) and pull pages from a *connected* part's datasheet when a finding spans an interface. It files findings with severity, reasoning, and page citations.
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4. **Compute** the deterministic parts deterministically — BOM roll-up and a capacitor voltage-derating table come straight from the graph, no model involved.
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A post-pass normalizes findings conservatively: it can merge duplicates and downgrade severity, never upgrade. If the reviewer hedged, the report hedges.
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It's a reviewer, not an oracle. It misses things, and it will occasionally question a choice you made on purpose — that's what the citations are for.
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## Try it on the bundled design
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`simple_project/` is a small MSPM0G3507 board with a CH340E USB-UART bridge and an SPX3819 LDO. Run it through and Pinscope flags, among other things, the LDO's bypass pin left unconnected (~300 µV<sub>RMS</sub> output noise instead of ~40) and the 5 V-powered CH340E driving the 3.3 V MCU directly — each with the page reference to check its work.
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You need Python 3.12+, Node 20+, and an [Anthropic API key](https://console.anthropic.com/):
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```bash
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pip install -r backend/requirements.txt
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cp backend/.env.example .env # set ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
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python3 scripts/upload_skills.py --update # one-time: registers the extraction prompts under your account
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python3 -m uvicorn backend.main:app --reload
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cd frontend && npm install && npm run dev
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```
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Open http://localhost:3000, create a project, and feed it the netlist and BOM from `simple_project/` plus datasheet PDFs for the ICs — grab those from the manufacturers, or set the optional DigiKey API keys and let it fetch them. Everything runs locally against your own key; projects and the extraction library live in `data/`. Architecture notes are in [CLAUDE.md](CLAUDE.md).
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## Hosted version
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This repo is the product minus accounts and billing. If you'd rather not run it yourself, [pinscope.ai](https://pinscope.ai) is the same code, hosted, with team workspaces and a shared parts library that's already warm.
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## License
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AGPL-3.0. For commercial licensing, write to dev@faradworks.com.
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