Programs for Circuit Design

This article presents programs for designing electronic circuits, which can be used by professionals or beginners in the world of engineering or in component repair. This list serves as a guide to help you choose the right program based on your knowledge.

Fritzing

Fritzing is a digital logic circuit design program that can be used by users without extensive knowledge in the area. Its use is very simple, and its interface highlights the work area and the objects located on the right side. Fritzing requires a payment of 8 euros and its code is available on GitHub for those who want to participate in development (it has a GNU GPL v3 license). It is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux operating systems.

FreePCB

FreePCB is a printed circuit editor known for being very simple to use, thanks to its interface design and features. The platform allows creating up to 8 copper layers, designing circuits up to 60 x 60 inches, but if you want to make things easier you can use its templates, and it allows importing and exporting PADS-PCB lists or Gerber and Excellon files. The environment lacks the automatic circuit routing option. FreePCB is a free program available for Windows operating systems.

Qucs

Qucs allows you to create electronic circuits and a simulator thanks to its Qt-based graphical user interface. This way you can simulate the behavior of the signal and the noise of small and large microwave circuits. The results can be displayed on a presentation page in different formats (rectangular, polar, Smith, tabular, rectangular 3D, etc.). Qucs is a free program available for Windows, Ubuntu and Mac OS X operating systems.

LogicCircuit

LogicCircuit is an educational program to design and simulate digital logic circuits. Its interface is completely intuitive, and thanks to its simplicity you can create circuits without restrictions with multi bit buses. LogicCircuit is a free program available for Windows operating systems (requires Microsoft .NET Framework).

PCB Artist

Finally, we have PCB Artist, a powerful electronic circuit editor that supports manual drawing of each connection and component. You can also use its library and place chips, diodes, resistors, transistors, capacitors, etc. PCB Artist is a free program available for Windows operating systems.

We hope that with the programs for designing electronic circuits you can carry out your creations. You can also see KiCad and CircuitHub, two good options that we recommend at Neoteo.