Conversation highlights
How did the name “AllSpice” for your hardware development tool come about?
SPICE, the simulation and modeling program has been widely known and used within the engineering industry since the 70s. From that, the Allspice co-founders began brainstorming the possibility of automating and tying together simulation in analytics and design data. And the “All” stems from the desire to unify the different forms of spice – ltspice and ngspice.
What was missing from the hardware industry that created a need for AllSpice?
In the past, the co-founders were electrical and mechanical engineers by training. They dealt with frustrations and issues with legacy processes and desired a more agile and efficient workflow. They wanted to build a platform that had:
- Flexibility
- The ability to release designs quicker and more frequently
- A more streamlined process
The use and effectiveness of Git for software engineering teams mirrored the workflows they desired for hardware development.
What exactly is Git?
Git is a free, open-source technology – essentially, it is a protocol that details the structure of your data and sends it over the network. And there’s tons of functionality built on top of it. GitHub hosts design files, while Git is used to push/pull from there. Git revision control, when compared to other systems, differs when it comes to steps – that is, commit, then push. A commit adds a new revision with these designs to your previous copy. Push then allows it to sync with the server.
Tell us about your diff tool and how its improving the workflows of electrical and hardware engineers
The first thing built by AllSpice was the diff tool – a tool that was ubiquitous in the software industry but nonexistent in hardware. From the file level to the object level, it allows engineers to take a closer look at what has changed between schematic and PCB file versions. The free tool has added tons of value for engineers and created more agile workflows.
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