Monday, July 14, 2014

Open source Schematic drawing software you should try

It is good to have open source software since they are vendor independent and are for free. There are many Open source/ Freeware Schematic drawing software and Circuit Simulator but the ones below are worth trying out. These application are meant for windows operating system which can be downloaded for free from their website.

LTSpice

LTSpice is a freeware program by Linear Technology. It provides schematic design, simulation and waveform analysis and can be used for analog and digital design and analysis, RF design and simulation, power electronics application. Electronics circuits with transistors, amplifiers, diodes, passive components can be build in the schematics and stimulated to analysis the performance of the circuit. LTSpice supports Transients, DC and AC analysis and parametric analysis. After simulation has been performed circuit netlist can be generated from the schematic and exported to PCB design software of other vendors to create the PCB.



Quite Universal Circuit Simulator(QUCS)

 QUCS is an open source integrated circuit simulator that has schematic editor which means an electronics circuit can be drawn into it. It has also library of electronics components- passive and active components. It supports different kinds of simulation for the designed circuits such as transcient, DC and AC analysis(small and large signal), noise, parametric analysis and also S-parameter analysis. This software can be used for RF and Microwave design, analyze Power Amplifiers, Mixers etc with S-parameter and can be used for plotting Smith charts, perform stability analysis. It also has mathematical equation input feature which allows equation to be used in the simulation analysis.



 Logic Circuit

 Interested in Digital Design and looking for digital logic circuit design program, then try this Logic Circuit. This program is an open source program free to download and use. This program is helpful for testing new microcontroller and microprocessor idea. It has library of digital circuit components such as logic gates(and, or, nand etc) and flip flops that can be drawn into the schematic sheet and perform logic simulation and analysis.


Schematic design software provides an excellent way to learn electronics design.

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