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.

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

• Comparison of EDA software
• Comparison of CAD software

References

<references>http://www.olimex.com/pcb/dtools.html [reference list of software titles]