Best Professional PCB Design Software

Best Professional PCB Design Software

Best Professional PCB Design Software For any production level of electronic device printed circuit board is the backbone for the electronic device. Traditionally in early days, Printed circuit boards were designed manually by creating a photomask on a clear mylar sheet which will be about two or four times the actual size of the PCB. Traces were made using self-adhesive tape and pre-printed non-reproducing grids on the mylar assisted in a layout. Modern PCBs are designed with dedicated PCB Design software.

There are numerous software packages available for designing printed circuit boards and sometimes it becomes daunting to decide and choose the Best Professional PCB Design Software. However,  it is the type & complexity of the design which ultimately should be considered before finalizing any of the software. Some of the common & most popular software which are used in PCB designing are Altium, Eagle, and orcad.

 

Things to consider before choosing a Package

  1. Type of application and purpose: Is it for a hobby? Consumer or Industrial market? Or for Mission-critical project or product?
  2. Portability: Free tools and program sometimes do not allow to export or convert the design. Understand the limitations.
  3. Capability: Understand diversified layout design limitations – is it a number of boards or components? Is your design for one-time use or it’s scalable?
  4. Community Support: More popular the package, more changes of getting ready-made libraries for the part number which will be required in the project.
  5. Ease-of-use: Don’t worry too much about it. All tools seem complicated initially and practice is the key to know about the tools.

The list below gives an idea about some of the Best Professional PCB Design Software, but this list cannot be considered exhaustive and should be used only to understand PCB Design software comparative key features.

Free Basic PCB Design Software Tools

  1. PCB WEB

PCB Web supports both schematics and PCB layouts for electronics engineers who are looking to simplify the hardware design. PCB WEB is an ideal tool for designing and manufacturing electronics hardware.

Key Features:

  • To design multi-sheet schematics with PCB webs is fast and easy to use writing tool.
  • Route multi-layer boards with support for copper pours and DRC checking
  1. Tiny CAD Software

Tiny CAD software helps in drawing electrical circuit diagrams or schematic drawings which will be printed on printed circuit board (PCB). This software allows to copied and pasted into a word document. This Tinycad comes with many symbol libraries.

Key Features:

    • Flat or hierarchical schematic entry
    • Includes many popular PCB layout-compatible netlist formats
    • Convenient support for embedding graphical images in a drawing
    • Mostly used to draw one-line diagrams, block diagrams, and presentation drawings
  1. BSch3V

BSch3V is a popular design software tool for electronics engineers who need a free solution.BSch3V is for windows vista/7/8/10 and basic functions to simplify operations.

Key Features:

  • Component library editor
  • Parts list generator
  • Netlist generator
  • Automatic numbering software
  • Source code and component library
  • Basic schematic capture
  1. CircuitMaker

Circuit maker also works together to invent circuits and electronics products. Electronic engineers looking to create products to better the future often use circuit maker to turn their idea into products.

Key features:

  • Design high-quality schematics and PCBs with no artificial limits on layers counts or board areas
  • Rely on the community to find reference designs and to promote and rate others projects.
  • Setup teams for collaborative designs
  1. ZenitPCB

ZenitPCB is a free PCB layout software tools for electronic projects a flexible and easy to use program zenitPCB helps electronics engineers create projects in a short time because it is intuitive

Key features

  • Designed for personal or semi-professional use
  • Limited to 800 pins
  • Developed by PCB designer
  • Create PCB in a speedy intuitive way

Paid PCB Design Software Tools

  1. Protel (Altium Designer)

Portel introduced the circuit board design software in the circuit industry it is a good one for two layers board however it becomes harder to use when it comes to 4 layers. Altium Designer is efficient easy to use and meet the requirements of the professional electronics engineers.

Key features:

Product inspired designs by concentrating more on the creative aspects of workflow

Effortless design automation

Verify designs in the mechanical world

Centralized trusted design assets

  1. PADS (Power PCB)

PADS is the king of the cad in the low side it is the best EDA among the similar EDA for its easy use easy to learn pads are widely used EDA in the market and it is also very suitable for small companies and advanced features like physical design reuse.

Key Features:

  • Built-in DFF
  • Automatic routing
  • High-speed interactive routing
  • 3D visualization and placement
  • Easy, effective interactive routing
  • Easily create split planes and copper areas
  1. ORCAD

EDA software is developed by ORCAD the best complete PCB design software for circuit simulation PCB layout and PCB manufacturing design. ORCAD is great fame in the industry since it is friendly user face.

Key Features:

  • Grows with evolving design challenges and provides scalability for future challenges.
  • ORCAD intuitive interfaces make easy to learn and use
  • Fully integrated simulation and analysis technologies ensure first pass-success without any need for translations.
  • Powerful effective functionality depth with award-winning Or CAD technologies

 

  1. SOLIDWORKS PCB

For the electronic design of the PCB Solidworks offers powerful design technology with on-demand bidirectional integration with SolidWorks CAD .one the best feature in the tool is that PCB solutions bring together CAD and PCB design for flawless collaboration

Key features

  • Easy to use interface which combines the best technology in PCB
  • Links with SolidWorks CAD for an efficient design experience
  • The workflow of the PCB designs goes quickly and easily.
  1. Dip Trace

Dip trace is provided board design with smart manual routing and shape based auto-router. electronic engineers prefer Diptrace for its single environment with direct circuit-to-board converting, updating from a schematic and back annotation

Key features:

  • Real-time DRC
  • Differential parts
  • 3D preview
  • Step Export
  • Placement features allow for placing components manually by simple drag and drop or automatically according to custom settings.

 

Argus Technologies is in business since May 2008. The rich experience gained over those years in various fields of electronics design, software, prototyping & manufacturing, Advance PCB testing, PCB Manufacturing, PCB testing, PCB assembly printed circuit Boards, PCB Fabrication is a huge advantage and using best professional PCB design software.

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