Diode Computers Develops AI-Powered Tools to Revolutionize PCB Design and Manufacturing

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Diode Computers, a Brooklyn-based startup developing AI-powered tools for circuit board design and manufacturing, has announced a successful Series A funding round of $11.4 million, led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).

Founded by Davide Asnaghi and Lenny Khazan, Diode Computers is streamlining the process of printed circuit board (PCB) design by replacing traditional diagram-based workflows with code-driven automation. The company’s proprietary software translates circuit layouts into code, allowing AI models to detect issues, generate optimized schematics, and accelerate development cycles that once took weeks or months to just a few days.

“The people that can generate circuit boards are retiring, and so now you have a very small set of people that can generate correct designs from experience and a ton of people that would love to learn, but there's not enough manpower to teach them,” said Diode cofounder and CEO Davide Asnaghi.

The company’s toolchain includes a PCB compiler written in Rust, a spec generator that converts input requirements into manufacturable designs, and a BOM compiler that automatically matches parts with real-time pricing and availability. Diode’s AI agents can understand hardware schematics as code and cross-reference datasheets to reduce design errors, while experienced engineers perform final design reviews before production. All designs are compatible with industry-standard tools like Altium, KiCad, and Cadence.

Diode currently works with robotics, aerospace, and medical device companies—industries that demand rapid prototyping and U.S.-based production. It partners with manufacturers in California and the East Coast to deliver full-scale board fabrication. The company ultimately aims to become an end-to-end platform for PCB development.

“Our eventual vision is that our customers should be able to push code to us in the same way that you deploy on AWS, and we will take that code and generate a physical product that gets shipped back to their assembler or their factory,” Asnaghi explained.

The recent funding brings Diode’s total raised capital to over $14 million. Other participants in the round include Caffeinated Capital, Box Group, and Y Combinator, where Diode was part of the Summer 2024 batch. The startup counts AI robotics company Physical Intelligence and autonomous marine systems firm Saronic among its early customers.

Erin Price-Wright, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz’s American Dynamism practice, emphasized the national importance of flexible hardware manufacturing in a fast-changing global environment.

“Instead of designing one PCB board that's going to be in an airplane for the 50-year lifetime of an airplane, you're thinking about having to redesign a new electronic stack every couple of months of a drone being deployed onto a battlefield,” she said.

Before founding Diode, Asnaghi worked on custom silicon chip design at stealth startup Chromatic and also held engineering roles at Apple and Butterfly Network. He studied engineering in Italy and Hong Kong before earning his master’s degree from UC Berkeley. His cofounder, Lenny Khazan, brings experience from Chromatic and Instabase and met Asnaghi while interning at Butterfly Network.

“Electronics is the most magical of the engineering disciplines,” said Asnaghi. “You can take software, which is somewhat ethereal, and make it do things in the real world.”

As hardware becomes more central to innovation across industries, Diode is positioning itself at the intersection of AI, automation, and scalable electronics manufacturing.

Click here to learn more about Diode Computers.