Your engineers use NX to sketch, constrain, and model all features. For Flux, you define the part. Next, the AI engineer builds a model, runs checks, and arranges manufacturing.
Flux gives your team an autonomous hardware engineer. Provide a requirement to the AI. It prepares design plans, chooses parts, drafts schematics, completes board routing, designs mechanical parts, and programs firmware. The software confirms its own work via design rule checks and simulation. Finally, your engineers receive files that are ready to manufacture.
NX is software from Siemens for product design, simulation, and manufacturing.[1]
NX was first called Unigraphics. Siemens Digital Industries Software has owned it since 2007.[2]
Use everyday language to explain the part or change. Flux constructs the parametric model and assigns the right CAD kernel to each part. It executes stress, thermal, and airflow simulation, then outputs STEP, STL, or 3MF files. Your engineers verify and adjust the result. Flux functions within your web browser.
| Feature | Flux | Siemens NX |
|---|---|---|
| Requirements and specification | The AI engineer turns your idea into requirements and a product specification, and checks the design against them. | Teamcenter integrates requirements across the product lifecycle.[8] |
| What it is | AI hardware engineer providing its own design tools | CAD, CAM, and CAE software[2] |
| Where it runs | Use your web browser without installation. The cloud stores your projects. | Desktop software for Windows that you install on your computer[2] |
| Who does the design work | The Flux agent. Your engineers review and edit. | Your engineers model parts and assemblies in NX.[1] |
| How a part is made | Give details for a part. The AI engineer develops a parametric model. Next, your engineers check and revise it. | Your engineers model each part in the tool[1] |
| CAD kernel | Kernel agnostic: includes OpenCascade, NVIDIA SMLib, and Siemens Parasolid on request. The AI engineer selects the kernel for each part. | Parasolid[2] |
| Mechanical CAD | Kernel agnostic and built in. From a complete robot arm down to an enclosure. | Built in[1] |
| Mechanical simulation | Airflow, stress, and thermal finite-element simulation | Static, dynamic, electromagnetic, thermal, and fluid analysis[2] |
| Mechanical manufacturing | Quotes for CNC machining, 3D printing, laser cutting, and sheet metal, along with 3MF, STL, and STEP files | CAM for machined parts[1] |
| CNC toolpaths and G-code | The AI engineer writes the toolpaths, the G-code, a toolpath preview, and a setup sheet for the parts that it designed. | NX CAM creates machining toolpaths and G-code.[3] |
| Import from other tools | Imports complete projects from Altium, OrCAD and Allegro, KiCad, PADS and Xpedition, CADSTAR, Eagle, Fusion Electronics, EasyEDA, DipTrace, and SOLIDWORKS PCB. Flux imports Labcenter Proteus SDF netlists with Specctra board exports. IPC-2581 revision B and C files become board projects with reusable footprint parts. IDF 2.0 and 3.0 board files become board projects with the outline, cutouts, drilled and mounting holes, part placements, and 3D part heights. | Imports and translates common CAD formats into NX.[4] |
| Versions, branches, and merges | Full change history. The AI engineer forks a design into a second version, keeps both, and merges the changes that you pick. | Teamcenter manages design revisions and release workflows.[5] |
| Who reviews the work | The whole team, in one live project in the browser: electrical, layout, mechanical, and firmware engineers | Your engineers review the design in the NX desktop app.[1] |
| Product images, videos, and documents | Product images, product videos, datasheets, and regulatory documents, made from the design in the project. | NX creates photorealistic product images with Ray Traced Studio.[9] |
| Tool licenses | Your Flux plan provides the editor, simulation, mechanical CAD, parts data, and manufacturing files. You do not need to buy anything else. | Designcenter CAD and NX CAM are separate products and bundles[1] |
| Plus the electronics | ||
| Schematic and parts | Built in. Picks from 734,000+ public parts. | Not in Siemens NX[1] |
| Placement and routing | The AI engineer places the parts and routes the board like an experienced designer. Your engineers review and edit. | Not in Siemens NX for PCB trace routing[6] |
| High-speed design | The AI engineer plans DDR topology and timing budgets, routes differential pairs and length-matched buses, tunes length and skew, fans out BGAs with blind, buried, and microvias, and sets trace impedance from your stackup. It checks the routed board with S-parameters, TDR, eye diagrams, crosstalk analysis, and a signal integrity, power integrity, and EMC review. Your engineers review and edit. | Not in Siemens NX[1] |
| Parts and sourcing | 734,000+ public parts, with live prices and stock from distributors | Not in Siemens NX[1] |
| Simulation and design rule checks | SPICE, power delivery network, full-wave electromagnetic, signal integrity, thermal, and mechanical simulation, plus design rule checks | Designcenter includes structural, motion, and thermal simulation.[7] |
| Firmware | Writes firmware for the board it designed | Not in Siemens NX[1] |
| Wiring harnesses | Built in. Flux designs the wiring harnesses between the boards: connectors, pinouts, and wires, in the same project. | Designcenter routes wire harnesses through 3D assemblies.[6] |
| Manufacturing files | Gerber, ODB++, IPC-2581, bill of materials, pick-and-place, and more; Flux can check the files before you order, including copper gaps, silkscreen, board outline, BOM, and pick-and-place files. | Not in Siemens NX[1] |
| Quotes and orders | Quotes and orders for boards, 3D printing, CNC machining, and wire harnesses, from the project. | Not in Siemens NX[1] |
Start a Flux project free and describe the device you want to build.
Flux engineers complete assemblies and single parts. These range from an enclosure or a bracket, ending with a complete robot arm. It integrates every part into one model.
Flux adjusts every part to fit the real board, including its cutouts, mounting holes, and connectors. The agent can modify mechanical parts and the board at the same time.
A single library for the complete product holds the chips and connectors. It also contains devices not on the board, plus mechanical hardware including screws and standoffs.
Flux creates editable CAD code and a STEP file for each part. Your engineers can examine and change the code.
Upload your mechanical parts. Use plain words to instruct Flux to revise them. After that, get them manufactured.
The request, as typed in Flux
“The holder must cover a much taller power supply. Make the bent side flange 40 mm deeper. Keep the 4.4 mm hole in the flange where it is. Then cut five 5 x 30 mm vertical vent slots in the new part of the flange, 15 mm apart and centered on the flange width.”
Import 3D models, part libraries, and complete projects. The process keeps parts, placement, and schematics, plus routing from most formats.
The team can modify imported designs without delay. Tell Flux "make the enclosure tighter" or "move the USB cutout 3 cm left", and Flux finishes the work.
Flux creates all necessary files for your manufacturer. For the board, you get Gerber, ODB++, IPC-2581, bill of materials, and pick-and-place. For mechanical parts, you receive STEP, STL, or 3MF.
Kernel-agnostic CAD
Traditional CAD tools restrict designs to one geometry kernel, passing these limits to every part. Flux works as a kernel agnostic tool, like its model agnostic design. For each part, the AI engineer chooses the right kernel. If a kernel fails to create a feature, the AI engineer replaces it. Next, the AI engineer merges every part into one model.
Other CAD tools and CAM cleanly read the exact, standard geometry. It is strong for multi-part assemblies and machined parts.
Create smooth, curvature-continuous surfaces for consumer and hand-held products.
This kernel runs in SolidWorks, NX, Solid Edge, and Onshape. It supports native-quality exchange with these tools.
Visible surface quality. Zebra stripes, curvature maps, and curvature combs demonstrate the smoothness of every surface before the part moves to tooling.
Verification lab
Generating designs is just the start for Flux. The AI engineer uses professional-grade solvers to simulate these designs. It checks its own work, then shows the results to you.
Perform finite-element stress analysis on enclosures, brackets, and mounts.
Simulate heat and airflow for enclosures and boards before you build them.
Cooling and airflow through the enclosure ensure fans, vents, and heat sinks operate before the first prototype.
The AI engineer runs and reviews SPICE simulations of power, analog, and mixed-signal circuits.
Run a full-wave simulation on the routed board to analyze impedance, S-parameters, crosstalk, and antennas.
Run manufacturing and electrical rule checks on every board and schematic.
It reviews every part datasheet to verify the design complies with pinouts, ratings, and limits.
Manufacturing
Flux contacts fabricators directly to receive quotes for circuit boards and assembly, 3D printing in plastic and metal, CNC machining, sheet metal, laser cutting, injection molding, casting, and wiring harnesses. The AI engineer analyzes price and lead time. It inspects the design to verify compliance with the rules of every fabricator. If the design changes, the AI engineer maintains a current quote.
Craftcloud 
JLC 3D printing 
PCBWay 3D printing 
Shapeways 
OSH Cut 
SendCutSend JLCPCB PCBWay 
OSH Park 
AISLER 
MiniProto One project contains the mechanical parts, the firmware, and the board. The AI agent can edit these mechanical parts and the board at the same time. You do not need to exchange files between a mechanical tool, a code editor, and an electronics tool.
Flux requires no installation or license server management. It functions on all computers containing a modern web browser.
Send a link to share a project. Several engineers can edit it at once. Nobody sends files via email or asks what the latest version is.
New features and fresh AI models deploy directly into the application. You avoid installing newer versions or migrating your projects to them.
You start without creating a part library. The Flux library offers 734,000+ public parts.
Share a link to invite engineers. Project-level permissions and single sign-on set who views what.
One platform
Flux is not a bundle of unlinked CAD applications. Engineers work inside one AI-native engineering platform. Here, every discipline operates on the same project and identical data, alongside one shared AI engineer.
Define requirements, research parts, capture schematics, and simulate.
Part placement, trace routing, board stackups, design rule checks, along with inter-board wiring harnesses.
Firmware for the board created by Flux, such as Arm Cortex-M, RISC-V, AVR, or Pico. The code is then built, analyzed, and unit tested.
Model-agnostic AI
Frontier AI models generate reasoning. Flux integrates these models into an advanced agent system created for CAD and EDA. Flux also adds the workflows, project context, and engineering tools necessary to build working hardware from this reasoning.
Adaptive breaks every engineering job into separate tasks. The system matches each task with a model that works well for the price. Frontier models evaluate hard design decisions. Fast, low-cost models execute routine work. Independent tasks execute in parallel, making complete devices ready faster. Your team collaborates with one AI engineer. Flux organizes these assignments behind the scenes.
In Flux, use the frontier models that your team already trusts.
Flux gives every model specialized engineering tools, workflows, and project context.
Your team receives an improved model upon release, without leaving engineering platforms.
Do not let your engineering capacity rely on only one model provider.
Adaptive selects the correct model for each engineering step. The steps range from deep design decisions through routine checks.
For learning and evaluation, with light AI usage and unlimited manual editing.
For active hardware projects, with included AI usage and additional usage available.
For larger projects and heavier AI usage, with hands-on support from experienced electrical engineers.
For teams on shared projects, with pooled AI usage, member seats, and priority support.
Eligible individual plans include a free trial. Teams subscriptions start paid; trial and pricing terms depend on your current offer. See all plans
Not ready to pick a plan? Start for free
Select NX if your engineers wish to machine and model parts by hand. Select Flux so an AI engineer can design the firmware, the board, and the mechanical parts for your engineers to review.
Book our team for a demo, or view individual plan offers.
