PCB Design software

Anyone have a recommended suite of design, simulation and layout tools? I'm trying to determine the best one to buy for my company.

Good software

One i have found to be nice is
http://www.cadsoftusa.com Eagle layout software

They have both a windows and linux version for free(with board limitation), and the versions for sale are resonably priced.

I have experience with Electronics Workbench. I would consider this to be one of the most popular Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools around.

**broken link removed**

They have a demo available to download.

OrCad makes a great suite of design software, Capture, Layout, Pspice- Very expensive!! Electronics Workbench is great! depending on what your doing, find a student version. ExpressPCB has a free layout program downloadable at expresspcb.com

hey thanks for that expresspcb.com link!

hi,
I also need a pcb design software, wich must be free, but what i vant it to do is:
i vant to make the schematic and then give the pcb size and the program must make the lyout....
i also have a ocrad free aditoin, but it's 2 advanced for me, it's just much more than i need....so a small program to do what i said upper, will do great, maybe u know some software....

EAGLE Layout Editor is free and you can make shematics and PCBs. It's maby a little to understand and how to use... I'm also having troubles..

Stacy, why dont you download Autotrax EDA. It is a full free (LEGAL !!!)
schematic editor, circuit simulator and PCB layout package. Download
size is 24MB. It is available from www.autotraxeda.com

Stacy said:

Anyone have a recommended suite of design, simulation and layout tools? I'm trying to determine the best one to buy for my company.

Click to expand...

Hi Stacy,

How big is your company? Can you spend thousands, or hundreds, or nothing on the software? Most importantly...do you need mainstream software that is widely used by other companies so that your designs remain compatible with other designers/manufacturers? That is an important thing to keep in mind if you will be working with other engineers on the project, etc. I've ran into that problem before and it can be crippling.

Anyhow, OrCad Capture/PSPICE is a widely used platform, and what I use now (but it's pretty expensive):

**broken link removed**


I also offer a warning about OrCad Capture/PSPICE:
In my experience, whoever wrote the OrCad software has never heard of the word "user-friendly". Even for an engineer, it can be a mysterious program.

Full Autotrax EDA is no longer free. Sad.