schematic capture software

[steve]

Hi,

I've been trying out some of the various free schematic capture tools
(gschem, Weblab and various others), but none of them are really what
I'm after. Specifically, I'm looking for a reasonable spice GUI,
suitable for nanometer IC design with a good waveform viewer. I've used
Mentor Graphics' Eldo which isn't perfect, but it does the job. I
assume it also costs a fair amount, although I can't find any prices on
their website.

So does anyone have any recommendations for good, cheapish (or even
free) schematic capture tools?

Cheers,

Steve

 

[Robert Baer]

Hi,

I've been trying out some of the various free schematic capture tools
(gschem, Weblab and various others), but none of them are really what
I'm after. Specifically, I'm looking for a reasonable spice GUI,
suitable for nanometer IC design with a good waveform viewer. I've used
Mentor Graphics' Eldo which isn't perfect, but it does the job. I
assume it also costs a fair amount, although I can't find any prices on
their website.

So does anyone have any recommendations for good, cheapish (or even
free) schematic capture tools?

Cheers,

Steve

....as thejoke goes, if you have to ask about the price, you cannot
afford it!

 

[Helmut Sennewald]

Hi,

I've been trying out some of the various free schematic capture tools
(gschem, Weblab and various others), but none of them are really what
I'm after. Specifically, I'm looking for a reasonable spice GUI,
suitable for nanometer IC design with a good waveform viewer. I've used
Mentor Graphics' Eldo which isn't perfect, but it does the job. I
assume it also costs a fair amount, although I can't find any prices on
their website.

So does anyone have any recommendations for good, cheapish (or even
free) schematic capture tools?

Cheers,

Steve

Hello Steve,

I wonder why you haven't heard of LTspice. It's free of charge
and has similar features as the expensive packages. It also has
a graphical schematic capture what HSPICE or ELDO don't have.
LTspice is very compatible to PSPICE on the netlist level and
it also recognizes the library syntax of HSPICE.
LTspice is sometimes also named SwitcherCADIII.
Many universities have now switched to LTspice in the education
to give every student the chance of using SPICE at home too
for their projects.

Here are examples for IC-design with LTspice based on a
book about CMOS circuit design.
http://cmosedu.com/cmos1/book.htm

The download link for LTSpice.
It's not necessary to register for the software.
http://www.linear.com/designtools/softwareRegistration.jsp

There is also a user group.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LTspice/

Best regards,
Helmut
Moderator of the LTspice Yahoo group.
I am not an employee of Linear Technology.

 

[Ken Smith]

I wonder why you haven't heard of LTspice. It's free of charge
and has similar features as the expensive packages.

I think I'll jump in with a few advantages LTspice has over the others.

The design files are all stored as ASCII. This means that if you have
multiple people working on something, you can e-mail the design without
fear of anti-virus filters stripping the attachment.

Things are in a format that mere mortals can figure out. This makes it
posible for people to write extra tools. For example, I wrote a kludge
that lets me import frequency responces into a spreadsheet.

Some non-LTspice programs don't seem to be able to deal with circuits
using the LT1498. I have investigated very deeply but I think the part
has positive feedbacks inside that the folks at Linear had to find a way
to deal with in the .OP.

You never have to "double click". My brain knows what a "double click" is
but the fingers on my right hand and a PC never seem to agree on it so
this matters to me.

It runs under Windoz and (using wine) Linux. This means you are not
trapped into using Billyware on all the PCs that have to run it.

The schematic capture has a few good drawing tools that let you and
arcs, lines, circles and boxes etc that have no electrical meaning. When
working with someone in another part of the country, it is very handy to
be able to put such things into schematics along with notes like "my quick
model of how the motor works".

 

[steve]

I wonder why you haven't heard of LTspice. It's free of charge
and has similar features as the expensive packages. It also has
a graphical schematic capture what HSPICE or ELDO don't have.
LTspice is very compatible to PSPICE on the netlist level and
it also recognizes the library syntax of HSPICE.

I had heard of LTspice actually, although when I tried it (using wine
on linux), I had problems with the screen not redrawing properly,
making it a bit fustrating to use - every time I add a new component,
the new component box appears but is blank; I've got to drag it
off-screen and then back on-screen to see the component list!

However, after reading the replies here which hold LTspice in high
regard, I'll look into it again and see if I can work around/fix the
problems I'm having with it.

Thanks for the replies!

Steve

 

[Helmut Sennewald]

I had heard of LTspice actually, although when I tried it (using wine
on linux), I had problems with the screen not redrawing properly,
making it a bit fustrating to use - every time I add a new component,
the new component box appears but is blank; I've got to drag it
off-screen and then back on-screen to see the component list!

However, after reading the replies here which hold LTspice in high
regard, I'll look into it again and see if I can work around/fix the
problems I'm having with it.

Thanks for the replies!

Steve

Hello Steve,

I recommend to start with Windows(98SE, 2000 or XP) before you
spend too much time to get it running with Wine under Linux,
because I heard of some problems with specific versions of Wine.
I have tried it some weeks ago with Suse10.1 and the most actual
Wine at this time and it worked, but this was only for a test.
It's a nice gift that the author of LTspice takes care that
LTspice can be used with Wine, but he doesn't fix the bugs of Wine.

I have used it always with WINxxxx from MS, the native OS
for LTspice.

Best regards,
Helmut

 

[Fred Abse]

I had heard of LTspice actually, although when I tried it (using wine on
linux), I had problems with the screen not redrawing properly, making it a
bit fustrating to use

Works fine under WINE here - using 20041019 , then 20050211, now 0-9-10

A few quirks, such as the piecewise-linear voltage "additional points"
dialog working peculiarly (but I can still get the points in).

Maybe your WINE is the problem. I always compile from source, on the
machine it's going to run on.

 

[Charlie Edmondson]

Hi,

I've been trying out some of the various free schematic capture tools
(gschem, Weblab and various others), but none of them are really what
I'm after. Specifically, I'm looking for a reasonable spice GUI,
suitable for nanometer IC design with a good waveform viewer. I've used
Mentor Graphics' Eldo which isn't perfect, but it does the job. I
assume it also costs a fair amount, although I can't find any prices on
their website.

So does anyone have any recommendations for good, cheapish (or even
free) schematic capture tools?

Cheers,

Steve

Now, are you also wanting the simulator, as well? If so, check out
Trabuco Technology. Those guys are 'reasonably' priced!

Charlie