Software tool

One of several techniques for building Printed Circuit Boards and other kinds of electronics involves software design tools.

Software design tools
Some people still build circuits without ever using any software tools. For complicated circuits, software design tools can save a lot of time.

This section is being reorgnized and expanded, it may be a bit messed up for a few days.

The design tools fall into several classes:

Schematic Capture
Listed in Class as SchCap

PCB Layout
Listed in Class as PCB, generally includes a footprint editor to make new parts.

Circuit Simulation
Listed in Class as CirSim.

Other
Other tools that do not fall in the classes above

Suites
"Suites" that combine schematic capture, component editor for the components used in schematic capture, circuit simulation, PCB layout, autorouter, and footprint editor for the footprints used in PCB layout. A suite can be nice as you need draw the circuit only once.

Quite often people mix-and-match tools -- using a schematic capture from one suite to generate pretty schematics and a netlist, then importing the netlist a third party Specctra autorouter, then importing the result into a PCB layout program from another suite for the final manual clean-up and design rule checking. For this to work the tools must have compatible import and export tools.

(Is there another place for listing stand-alone tools such as a switching power supply "wizard" and a RF analysis tool? -- yes as this section is not limited to suites [anymore] )

Links
In no particular order:

(Some of this information in this table came from the list of software design tools at the Massmind).

A SourceForge search for "schematic" lists dozens of tools. Other than the ones already listed above, what tools in that list are useful for open circuits?

Is there any way to objectively compare these tools? How well did they do at the PCB Top Gun contest ?

Timing diagrams:
 * GTKWave Electronic Waveform Viewer http://intranet.cs.man.ac.uk/apt/projects/tools/gtkwave/
 * TimingTool http://www.timingtool.com/

When you want to post a picture of a schematic or timing diagram on a web site, should you use JPEG or PNG? I hope these 2 pictures answer your question:


 * http://www.ninechime.com/gallery/sketch/StopJPEGing.jpg
 * http://www.ninechime.com/gallery/sketch/StopJPEGing.png

Circuit simulation tools
Should this be integrated into the above list? Or should this be split out into a separate page?

Which kind of circuit simulation tool is most appropriate for experimenting with various relay CPU configurations?


 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_simulation
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_software
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_circuit_simulation
 * http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/7022/circuit-simulation-software

In no particular order:

analog electronic simulators
Quite Universal Circuit Simulator http://qucs.sourceforge.net/ has a wiki https://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/qucs/

Quite Universal Circuit Simulator (Qucs) is a open source electronics circuit simulator software released under GPL. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quite_Universal_Circuit_Simulator

gEDA is an open-source suite that comes with, among many other tools:
 * ngspice, a mixed-signal circuit simulator based on: Spice3f5, Cider1b1 and Xspice.
 * Gnucap is the Gnu Circuit Analysis Package, designed for mixed-mode simulation.
 * gspiceui (GNU Spice GUI) provides a GUI for GNU-Cap and Ng-Spice.

"Oregano is a schematic capture and circuit simulation program using the GNOME libraries. Coupled with ngspice, it can do DC sweeps, AC Sweeps, Time domain analysis, and Fourier analysis. All kinds of good stuff, and GPL licensed to boot." http://www.electronicschat.org/index.cgi/Oregano http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregano_%28software%29

LTSpice/SwitcherCad

http://sim4kicad.sf.net simulator

http://edacious.org/ simulator http://sf.net/projects/edacious/

"Can you simulate a schematic?" http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/4866/can-you-simulate-a-schematic

Circuit simulation software http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/7022/circuit-simulation-software

What are the freeware SPICE simulators available? http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/1206/what-are-the-freeware-spice-simulators-available

Program for simulating circuits on linux http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/12400/program-for-simulating-circuits-on-linux

NSPICE, a Forth Package to Simulate Electronic Circuits http://home.claranet.nl/users/mhx/nspice.html

Electrical Circuit Simulator http://mark.madscientist.ws/ http://markworld.com/ circuit editor written in JavaScript to run in a web browser; passes to circuit simulator on the server written in C.

Gnucap is the Gnu Circuit Analysis Package. The primary component is a general purpose circuit simulator. It performs nonlinear dc and transient analyses, fourier analysis, and ac analysis. Gnucap is not based on Spice, but some of the models have been derived from the Berkeley models. http://freeelectron.net/gnucap/ http://directory.fsf.org/project/gnucap/

"Web lectures on electronic circuits" "The circuits are emulated using Javascript functions, which make it feel like you are interacting with the circuitry itself." http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/02/web_lectures_on_electronic_cir.htm l http://spsu.edu/cs/faculty/bbrown/web_lectures/

Hans Summers. "Huff & Puff Oscillator Stabiliser Frequency Simulator" (source code in Java can be downloaded here) http://www.hanssummers.com/huffpuff.html

digital electronic simulators
tkgate open-source gate-level schematic entry and simulator http://www.tkgate.org/

LogicLab http://www.idcomm.com/personal/lorenblaney/

The Iowa Logic Simulator: a tool for modelling digital systems. http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/logicsim/

the Tofu relay circuit simulator. http://meatfighter.com/tofu/ http://meatfighter.com/tofu/tutorial/index.html might be useful for designing a Relay CPU.

FGDIANASYM digital simulator http://www.germinara.it/fgdianasym.htm

microcontroller simulators
A Really Basic Guide to the PIC Microprocessor and BoostC describes how to use the PIC simulator included with BoostC.

[PIC simulators] "Hades includes simulation models for ... the 8-bit PIC16 microcontrollers ..." http://tams-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/applets/hades/webdemos/index.html

[PIC simulators] miSim DE 2.1 is now FREE miSim DE 2.1 development environment ... It includes an editor, assembler and disassembler ... a simulator that simulates not only the microcontroller itself, but also devices connected to it in real time - from simple switches and LEDs to video displays and stepper motors. ... Also runs as web Applet http://www.feertech.com/misim/welcome.html

[68HC11 simulators] "THRSim11, ... allows you to edit, assemble, simulate and debug programs for the 68HC11 on Windows 95/98. THRSim11 simulates the CPU, ROM, RAM, all memory mapped I/O ports, and the on board peripherals." http://www.bdti.com/faq/3.htm

8051 simulators
JSIM-51 is a free 8051 simulator by Jens Altmann. 

"uCsim: the 8051 simulator for SDCC"

The Moravia Microsystems MCU 8051 IDE apparently includes a 8051 simulator and SDCC. 

Z80 simulators
SDCC includes uCsim, which supports the 8051, Z80, and other microcontrollers. 

Atmel AVR simulators
ucSim also supports the AVR family. 

visual diff tools
"Improving open source hardware: Visual diffs"  via "Hardware version control using visual DIFF" 

"Visual Diff Tools Revisited" 

"The Power of Visual Diff for Schematics & Layouts" 

(Didn't DavidCary write up a description of "blink" alt-tab comparing files somewhere?)