Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is increasingly used for applications in the hardware and software domains. It purports to reduce the manual effort involved in the development and testing of complex systems before release. Within the hardware space, most tasks have focused on design automation of integrated circuits, particularly with hardware description languages. However, other types of hardware also exist! In this survey, we instead examine how GenAI has been and is being across the printed circuit board (PCB) design life cycle. This includes everything from supply chains, system specification, circuit design, layout and optimisation, validation and test, and PCB assembly and distribution. Through this lens we present a taxonomy of discovered works, categorising them according to their intent and contributions. This survey also identifies key technical challenges that GenAI faces in this space, such as domain-specific data scarcity and limited support for integration with existing PCB tools. Finally, future research directions are discussed: our survey shows that there are many opportunities remaining when considering how GenAI may be integrated into various tasks in PCB design and test.

翻译：生成式人工智能（GenAI）正越来越多地应用于硬件和软件领域。它旨在减少复杂系统在发布前开发和测试所需的人工投入。在硬件领域，大多数任务集中在集成电路的设计自动化上，尤其是使用硬件描述语言。然而，其他类型的硬件也同样存在！在本综述中，我们转而考察GenAI如何被用于（并正在被用于）印刷电路板（PCB）设计的整个生命周期。这涵盖了从供应链、系统规范、电路设计、布局与优化、验证与测试，到PCB组装与分销的所有环节。通过这一视角，我们提出了一个已发现工作的分类法，根据其意图和贡献对其进行归类。本综述还指出了GenAI在该领域面临的关键技术挑战，例如特定领域数据稀缺以及与现有PCB工具集成的支持有限。最后，讨论了未来的研究方向：我们的研究表明，在考虑如何将GenAI整合到PCB设计与测试的各项任务中时，仍存在大量机遇。