Electronics is a scientific and engineering discipline that studies and applies the principles of physics to design, create, and operate devices that manipulate electrons and other electrically charged particles. Electronics is a subfield of physics and electrical engineering which uses active devices such as transistors, diodes, and integrated circuits to control and amplify the flow of electric current and to convert it from one form to another, such as from alternating current (AC) to direct current (DC) or from analog signals to digital signals.
A breadboard, solderless breadboard, or protoboard is a construction base used to build semi-permanent prototypes of electronic circuits. Unlike a perfboard or stripboard, breadboards do not require soldering or destruction of tracks and are hence reusable. For this reason, breadboards are also popular with students and in technological education.
Electronic design automation (EDA), also referred to as electronic computer-aided design (ECAD), is a category of software tools for designing electronic systems such as integrated circuits and printed circuit boards. The tools work together in a design flow that chip designers use to design and analyze entire semiconductor chips. Since a modern semiconductor chip can have billions of components, EDA tools are essential for their design; this article in particular describes EDA specifically with respect to integrated circuits (ICs).
National Instruments Corporation, doing business as NI, is an American multinational company with international operation. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, it is a producer of automated test equipment and virtual instrumentation software. Common applications include data acquisition, instrument control and machine vision. Since October 2023, NI operates as Emerson Electric's test and measurement business unit after getting acquired.
TARGET 3001! is a CAD computer program for EDA and PCB design, developed by Ing.-Büro Friedrich in Germany. This software application has been available since 1992 and operates on Microsoft Windows. It supports the design of electronic schematics, PCBs, and device front panels. The software is available in English, German and French.
OrCAD Systems Corporation was a software company that made OrCAD, a proprietary software tool suite used primarily for electronic design automation (EDA). The software is used mainly by electronic design engineers and electronic technicians to create electronic schematics, and perform mixed-signal simulation and electronic prints for manufacturing printed circuit boards (PCBs). OrCAD was taken over by Cadence Design Systems in 1999 and was integrated with Cadence Allegro in 2005.
The term gEDA refers to two things:
- A set of software applications used for electronic design released under the GPL. As such, gEDA is an ECAD or EDA application suite. gEDA is mostly oriented towards printed circuit board design. The gEDA applications are often referred to collectively as "the gEDA Suite".
- The collaboration of free software/open-source developers who work to develop and maintain the gEDA toolkit. The developers communicate via gEDA mailing lists, and have participated in the annual "Google Summer of Code" event as a single project. This collaboration is often referred to as "the gEDA Project".
NI Ultiboard or formerly ULTIboard is an electronic Printed Circuit Board Layout program which is part of a suite of circuit design programs, along with NI Multisim. One of its major features is the Real Time Design Rule Check, a feature that was only offered on expensive work stations in the days when it was introduced. ULTIboard was originally created by a company named Ultimate Technology, which is now a subsidiary of National Instruments. Ultiboard includes a 3D PCB viewing mode, as well as integrated import and export features to the Schematic Capture and Simulation software in the suite, Multisim.
KiCad is a free software suite for electronic design automation (EDA). It facilitates the design and simulation of electronic hardware for PCB manufacturing. It features an integrated environment for schematic capture, PCB layout, manufacturing file viewing, ngspice-provided SPICE simulation, and engineering calculation. Tools exist within the package to create bill of materials, artwork, Gerber files, and 3D models of the PCB and its components.
CR-5000 is Zuken's EDA design suite for electronic systems and printed circuit boards aimed at the enterprise market. It was developed to address complex design needs that involve managing the complete development and manufacturing preparation process on an enterprise-wide scale. CR-5000 is made to facilitate the design of complex and high-speed boards, with features aimed at addressing challenges such as signal integrity and electromagnetic compatibility.
AWR Corporation is an electronic design automation (EDA) software company, formerly known as Applied Wave Research, and then acquired by National Instruments
This page is a comparison of electronic design automation (EDA) software which is used today to design the near totality of electronic devices. Modern electronic devices are too complex to be designed without the help of a computer. Electronic devices may consist of integrated circuits (ICs), printed circuit boards (PCBs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) or a combination of them. Integrated circuits may consist of a combination of digital and analog circuits. These circuits can contain a combination of transistors, resistors, capacitors or specialized components such as analog neural networks, antennas or fuses.
Altium Designer (AD) is a PCB and electronic design automation software package for printed circuit boards. It is developed by Australian software company Altium Limited. Altium Designer was previously named under the "Protel" brand.
LTspice is a SPICE-based analog electronic circuit simulator computer software, produced by semiconductor manufacturer Analog Devices. It is the most widely distributed and used SPICE software in the industry. Though it is freeware, LTspice is not artificially restricted to limit its capabilities. It ships with a library of SPICE models from Analog Devices, Linear Technology, Maxim Integrated, and third-party sources.
DipTrace is a proprietary software suite for electronic design automation (EDA) used for electronic schematic capture and printed circuit board layouts. DipTrace has four applications: schematic capture editor, PCB layout editor with built-in shape-based autorouter and 3D preview, component editor, and pattern editor.
Pulsonix is an electronic design automation (EDA) software suite for schematic capture and PCB design. It is produced by WestDev, which is headquartered in Gloucestershire, England, with additional sales and distribution offices overseas. It was first released in 2001, and runs on Windows.
Toolkit for Interactive Network Analysis (TINA) is a SPICE-based electronics design and training software by DesignSoft of Budapest. Its features include analog, digital, and mixed circuit simulations, and printed circuit board (PCB) design.
CircuitMaker is electronic design automation software for printed circuit board designs targeted at the hobby, hacker, and maker community. CircuitMaker is available as freeware, and the hardware designed with it may be used for commercial and non-commercial purposes without limitations. It is currently available publicly as version 2.0 by Altium Limited, with the first non-beta release on January 17, 2016.
EasyEDA is a web-based EDA tool suite that enables hardware engineers to design, simulate, share - publicly and privately - and discuss schematics, simulations and printed circuit boards. Other features include the creation of a bill of materials, Gerber files and pick and place files and documentary outputs in PDF, PNG and SVG formats.
The Proteus Design Suite is a proprietary software tool suite used primarily for electronic design automation. The software is used mainly by electronic design engineers and technicians to create schematics and electronic prints for manufacturing printed circuit boards.
