Interface
Model Context Protocol servers that expose a board, instrument or service to an agent as tools it can call.
The most active tools first.
16 d ago
bench-mcp exposes SCPI power supplies, multimeters and oscilloscopes to an agent through 10 MCP tools, with no tool that sends raw SCPI. Voltage and current limits come from a file a person signs off, read once at start-up and enforced by a pure function before every command. The README says it has run only against simulated instruments.
17 d ago
HeyPCB's MCP server connects Claude Code, Codex or Cursor to its hosted KiCad board-design service. An agent can ask HeyPCB to build the whole board with build_board, or add parts and connections itself and call check_board until each finding is fixed. A local npm package adds KiCad project upload and Gerber export. The vendor README shows no fabricated board.
18 d ago
Tramuntana is an open bench tool built on the RP2350 (Raspberry Pi Pico 2) and Zephyr that works over one USB cable. It has SPI and I2C master and sniffer modes, a 2-channel 500 kS/s scope, a waveform generator, an 8-channel logic analyzer and a UART bridge. Its Python package adds an MCP server. The README shows no captures.
18 d ago
AWIC controls FX2-based USB logic analyzers and oscilloscopes that sigrok supports, from a Rust server with native USB drivers. Agents reach it through MCP, people through a web UI and scripts through an SCPI socket; it also switches USB hub port power. It runs on Linux and was built with Claude Code. The README says every feature works on hardware.
24 d ago
TraceMaker routes and places KiCad 9 and 10 boards and judges the result with KiCad's own design-rule check. Two agent skills prepare a board and sign off a route, and an experimental session mode exposes the router over MCP. The README reports 72.5% of PCBench tier B boards routed with no added KiCad errors, against 50% for Freerouting.
2 mo ago
OpenBaud connects Codex to local serial devices through an MCP server and plugin, with every write audited. It identifies ports from USB metadata, checks framing and checksums, and asks for acknowledgment before dangerous commands. Each byte goes to a capture that replays without hardware. The demo GIF and 46-second video show it on an ESP32-S3.
Ranked by points weighed against age. New entries with early votes rise.
48 d ago
A Reddit user had Claude Fable 5 design an RP2350 e-ink board through a KiCad MCP server, allowing no manual edits. Wccftech reports several rounds to fix wrong part picks. Five assembled boards cost 130 euros plus $450 in API credits, and Claude Opus 5 wrote the firmware. Photos show the board driving its 1.54-inch display.
15 d ago
JLCPCB's guide shows Claude Code designing a 5 A XL4015 buck converter in KiCad 10 through the kicad-mcp-pro server. Claude built a 16-net schematic and routed a 63 by 33 mm board with an A* router it wrote in Python. A netlist check caught an ISENSE to ISET short that ERC only warned about. The guide says nothing was fabricated.
2 mo ago
In an Octopart video, one prompt sends Claude Code through a digital low-pass filter on a Digilent Cmod S7 FPGA board. It writes and simulates the filter, then programs the board over JTAG. Through MCP servers for an Analog Discovery 2 and a Rigol scope, it sweeps test tones at 1, 5 and 15 kHz against the 10 kHz cutoff.
21 d ago
In September Nordic Semiconductor added skills to its Nordic MCP server that drive a Power Profiler Kit II and SEGGER J-Link probes. The PPK2 skill captures long measurement runs and flags anomalies against a reference pattern; the debug skill runs GDB sessions. The nRF Connect extension for VS Code now shares build context. The post shows no runs.
21 d ago
Celal Türkmen's ETH Zurich semester project has a language model convert a therapist's plain-language request into an MCP tool call for a rehabilitation robot. A validator built from each device's YAML file of parameters, units and bounds decides whether the call reaches the hardware. The README reports runs on a Novint Falcon haptic device under ROS 2 Jazzy.
2 mo ago
Anthropic opened a research preview of the Model Hardware Standard, a shared driver spec for agents that operate lab and manufacturing devices. Each device describes its settings and enforced safety limits, and agents reach it over MCP, a CLI or code. In a QuEra case study, an agent-improved laser relock script worked in 99.3% of 700 trials.
29 d ago
AMD introduced Ross on 30 September, an agentic assistant for development on its FPGAs, adaptive SoCs and embedded x86 processors. AMD says Ross pairs MCP servers for its tools such as Vivado and Vitis HLS with expert-written agent skills and a documentation search. It runs in clients such as Claude Code or Cursor. The launch video shows no hardware run.
3 mo ago
Sigurd Enghoff replaced the WLKATA MT4 desktop arm's stock firmware and built a vision and MCP control stack on top. His ATmega2560 firmware runs Cartesian moves on the arm, ArUco markers calibrate a fixed camera, and an MCP server takes requests from Claude Code or Cursor. Linked videos show the arm stacking cubes and following typed instructions.
4 mo ago
Tech With Anant rebuilt the Saras rover around Claude Code running on a Raspberry Pi 4. A small MCP server exposes the motors, encoders and camera as tools, and a CLAUDE.md file sets the robot's identity. An LD06 lidar handles obstacle detection. The 24-minute video shows the rover in a live test, driving toward a named object around obstacles.
35 d ago
Jacob Beningo gave Claude Code his Zephyr skills and a serial-port MCP server, then had it debug a sensor application on an NXP FRDM-MCXA156. The agent first blamed the hardware, and Beningo found the Click board mounted backward. Claude then traced readings of -45 C and 0% humidity to a conversion-timing bug. A screenshot shows its 83-sample check.
4 mo ago
Amer El-Saad built a 3-DOF tower crane for his master's thesis that Claude plans and drives through 4 MCP tools. One overhead camera, YOLOv8 and ArUco markers locate parts and stations in centimeters. An Arduino Uno drives the DC motors, and code rejects any route that crosses a worker. README photos show the crane and live detections.
38 d ago
Synacl's 2.5-minute video shows claude.ai writing a macro that runs on an ESP32 flashed with Synacl's gateway firmware. Claude connects through a custom MCP connector, creates a GPIO device and writes a 5-step macro. Its first run is refused until a person grants 2 permissions; then the board's GPIO 2 LED blinks. Synacl made the demo for its own product.
43 d ago
Lattice Semiconductor released Lattice Prompt, a free MCP link between agentic IDEs such as Claude Code or Cursor and its Radiant FPGA software. Lattice says an agent can run simulation, synthesis, place and route, timing analysis and bitstream generation from plain-language requests, grounded in its datasheets. The 16 September release reports productivity gains of 10x or more without a benchmark.
45 d ago
Tech-AD-venture's 23-minute video walks through using AI agents in VS Code for STM32 firmware, contrasting autocomplete with task-based agents. Tools covered include GitHub Copilot, Claude, Codex and PlatformIO. An STM32 RTOS example runs from requirement to review. Its description lists MCP hardware access as a possibility; we could not confirm on-board debugging in the video.
45 d ago
Asraful Haque and colleagues released an open-source toolkit for agent-driven RHEED (reflection high-energy electron diffraction) on a pulsed laser deposition system. It adds programmable electron-optics control, automatic beam alignment and rocking-curve capture, with analysis served over MCP. The paper describes a demo driven by natural-language requests. We found no code link.
6 mo ago
Lucas Gerads connected Claude Code to his LeCroy oscilloscope through lecroy-mcp and to ngspice through spicelib-mcp. In the post's 12-minute video, Claude simulates an RC low-pass filter, programs an ATtiny1614 to drive it and compares the scope traces with the simulation. Gerads warns that Claude cannot see the bench and needs an explicit pinout.
2 mo ago
In a Design News article, Jacob Beningo describes three tricks for using AI agents in embedded development. He recommends putting debuggers and logic analyzers behind MCP servers and grounding driver code in datasheets through retrieval. He power-cycles boards with uhubctl, a Yepkit YKUSH hub or two BK Precision 1685B supplies. The article reports no measured results.
2 mo ago
Zahra Ayar, Georg Fantner and colleagues published a paper on three MCP-connected agents that run an atomic force microscope. One converts plain-language requests to checked commands, one judges image quality and retunes imaging, and one diagnoses artifacts. In live experiments, the paper says, the tuning agent did as well as expert operators. No code is linked.
2 mo ago
Daniel Frassinelli of Veecle reviewed first-party hardware MCP servers and found that seven chip and tooling vendors shipped them between October 2025 and August 2026. He found no official server from ST, Infineon or Renesas. He writes that none of the vendor servers runs firmware without a physical board; Veecle's own product, Chiplab, targets that gap.
2 mo ago
Arduino released App Lab 0.10 with Agentic Mode, which connects a bring-your-own-key model to an UNO Q project through MCP and the App CLI. Claude is the first supported provider. The agent can create and edit files, run and stop the App and read errors as they happen. The post does not show it reaching the board's pins directly.
