Schematic editor
A schematic editor is a tool for schematic capture of electrical circuits or electronic circuits.
Schematic editors replaced manual drawing of schematic diagrams, but they still retain the capability of outputting schematics on specially formatted sheets. At the same time modern schematic editors capture schematic data in a way suited for automatic processing by further stages of the design cycle.
Besides basic drawing and visualization capabilities, modern schematic editors typically provide the following capabilities:
- Capture electrical properties and other attributes of components, wires, nets and pins.
- Hierarchical way of design.
- Generate netlists and other common representations of the designed circuit from schematic.
- Generate documentation.
- Generate Gerber files to CAM
- Libraries of standard components.
- Automatically detect and report errors in the schematic.
- Input designs from various formats, such as VHDL, Verilog, EDIF.
Availability
There are many schematic editors available, including commercial, freeware, shareware, and open source applications.[1]
| Name | URL | License | Environment | Reads | Writes | CAM | Limits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AutoTRAX DEX | http://www.kov.com/ | Commercial | Windows | AutoTRAX XML | AutoTRAX XML | Gerber, Excellon | unlimited layers, no PCB size limit. |
| BSch3V | http://www.suigyodo.com/online/e/ | Freeware | Windows | ||||
| DesignSparkPCB | http://www.designspark.com/ | Freeware | Windows | ||||
| EAGLE | http://www.cadsoft.de/ | Professional, Standard, Hobbyist, Light | Linux, Mac, Windows | EAGLE, ACCEL (P-CAD, Altium, Protel), ULTIBOARD, Netlists, BMP | EAGLE (XML), Netlists, Images, PDF, Custom (via ULPs) | Gerber, Excellon, Sieb&Meyer, HPGL, PostScript, Custom | 999 sheets, 255 layers, 16 layers for auto-router, 4 x 4 m (150 x 150 inches); freeware: 1 sheet; 2 layers, 100 x 80 mm (3.9 x 3.2 inches) |
| esCAD sch | http://sch.escad.jp/ | Freeware | Windows XP/7/8.1 | .EscSch, "package file" of Altera and Xilinx | .EscSch, Netlists, Images, PDF | max A0 sheet | |
| FreePCB | http://www.freepcb.com/ | GNU | Windows | PADS-PCB Netlists | PADS-PCB Netlists | Gerber | 16 layers, 60 x 60 inches |
| Fritzing | http://fritzing.org/ | GNU GPL v3 | Linux, Mac, Windows | SVG | Gerber | ||
| gEDA | http://www.gpleda.org/ | GPL | Linux | Gerber | |||
| KiCad | http://www.kicad-pcb.org | GPL | Linux, Windows | ||||
| Osmond PCB | http://www.osmondpcb.com/ | Freeware Trial | Mac | Gerber | Lue, DXF, PDF | DXF, PostScript | (trial limited to 700 pins) |
| PCBWeb | http://www.pcbweb.com/ | Freeware | Windows | ||||
| Pulsonix | http://www.pulsonix.com | Commercial, Lite | Windows | Altium, CADSTAR, Eagle, P-CAD, PADS, ORCAD, Gerber, SXF, BMP, WMF, EDIF and more | Custom, DXF, IDF, Images, Netlists, STEP, SPICE | 3D, Excellon, Gerber, LPKF, ODB++, STEP | Unlimited Layers, Unlimited Pin Limit. |
| TARGET 3001! | http://www.ibfriedrich.com/ | Freeware, commercial, students, educational institutes | Windows | Eagle, Protel | Eagle | Gerber, Excellon, Sieb&Meyer, HPGL, DXF, STEP, PovRay | Freeware: 250 Pins, 2 layers, schematic size and/or board size 1,2m x 1,2m, 100 schematic pages |
| TinyCAD | http://tinycad.sourceforge.net | Freeware | Windows | ||||
| ZenitPCB Layout | http://www.zenitpcb.com/eng/PCB.html | Freeware | Windows | Gerber | DXF, IDF, EAGLE | DXF, IDF | 800 pins |
See also
References
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Monday, March 14, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.