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:

• The ability to capture electrical properties and other attributes of components, wires, nets and pins.
• Hierarchical way of design.
• Abilities to generate netlists and other common representations of the designed circuit from schematic.
• The ability to generate documentation.
• Libraries of standard components.
• The ability to automatically detect and report errors in the schematic.
• the abilities to 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
Eagle	http://www.cadsoft.de/	Freeware Trial	Linux, Mac, Windows	Eagle	Eagle	Gerber, Excellon, Sieb&Meyer	16 layers, 64 x 64 inches (trial limited to 2 and 4 x 3.2 inches)
FreePCB	http://www.freepcb.com/	GNU	Windows	PADS-PCB Netlists	PADS-PCB Netlists	Gerber RS274X	16 layers, 60 x 60 inches
gEDA	http://www.gpleda.org/	GPL	Linux			Gerber RS274X
Kicad	http://www.lis.inpg.fr/realise_au_lis/kicad/	GPL	Linux, Windows
Osmond PCB	http://www.osmondpcb.com/	Freeware Trial	Mac	Gerber	Lue, DXF, PDF	DXF, PostScript	(trial limited to 700 pins)
ZenitPCB Layout	http://www.zenitpcb.com/eng/PCB.html	Freeware	Windows	Gerber 274X	DXF, IDF, Eagle	DXF, IDF	800 pins