A parts library
that returns calls.
openIE ECAD is an open, addressable component library for electronic design — symbols, footprints, 3D models, datasheets — plus the pipeline that creates new parts from public catalogs, distributor APIs, and datasheet PDFs.
Part geometry is not a commercial asset.
When a manufacturer publishes a datasheet, the shape and pinout of the package are description, not invention. A surface-mount land pattern that matches a datasheet is the only one that works. There is no proprietary geometry to monetize.
The current distribution model says otherwise. The dominant distributor parts API tiers its access so that ECAD modules — symbols, footprints, 3D — require an enterprise contract. The free tier returns 100 matched parts and no geometry. The middle tier returns datasheets and tech specs but still no ECAD module.
That gate isn't a market structure. It's a tax on every hardware engineer. We don't charge it.
Four properties, kept.
Every record has a URL and an API endpoint.
Footprint, symbol, component, search result — all reachable by HTTP, all returnable as JSON, all exportable as KiCad. No "click here to get a license."
IPC-7351B land patterns.
Every generated footprint runs through the IPC-7351B calculation — lead dimensions, lead tolerances, fab tolerance, placement tolerance, density level. SOIC, QFP, QFN, BGA, DIP, SOT, chip, crystal, diode. Three density variants per package.
Datasheet extraction is assisted, not magic.
A general vision LLM (GPT-4o, Gemini 2.0, DeepSeek-VL, Qwen2-VL) on an IC datasheet reaches between 1.5% and 11.1% IoU on footprint geometry — wrong almost always. A specialized extractor (LLM4-IC8K) reaches 71.6%. Useful, but not done. Every extracted record enters as a draft. A human verifies before it becomes a published download.
Source: arXiv:2508.03725
.kicad_sym · .kicad_mod · .step · JSON.
KiCad's S-expression formats are the lingua franca; KiCad reads and writes them and so does every converter in the open-source ECAD ecosystem. Plus STEP for 3D and JSON for everything that wants to be data.
A part record, plumbed.
The library is one record-type with three sibling surfaces:
Unified mechanical + electrical + simulation. Places footprints from this library directly onto boards.
Sketch a schematic, drop in parts from this library, hand it off for layout and simulation.
Compute, data, state, communication, memory, knowledge, agent, proof, synthesis.
openIE ECAD is built and maintained by Open Interface Engineering, Inc.