Top 5 best free pcb design software


I hope you all are good, in the previous tutorial(top 5 best free pcb design software) I have discussed about the PCB design stairway in popular software. In this tutorial I will discuss top five popular PCB design software. PCB designing is an inevitable part of electronic product designing. After the circuit has been designed in order to realize it in real world it is printed on the copper laminate.

Copper Laminate:

Copper laminate is an epoxy FR 4 fibre glass with copper pre bonded on both sides.

pcb design basics steps:

 

The method of PCB designing is essentially the same in all of the software the only difference is the User Interface and technique of performing the common tasks. The method of PCB designing can be broken down into the following tasks.

 Footprint Design:

In this task the pad is developed on which the electronic component is mounted.

Placement:

 

The electronic components are properly arranged on the board according to the Design rules or according to the guidelines of the customer.

Board Boundary:

After properly placing all of the electronic components the boundary of the PCB is defined which determine the dimensions of the actual board.

Routing: After this the final task of routing is done which determines which pin of one component is to be connected to another which pin of another component.

 

top 5 best free pcb design software

 

The complete detail of each step is discussed in my previous tutorial here it is reviewed for reference. Let us discuss now discuss top ten PCB Design Software.

 

  1. Allegro PCB Designer:

Allegro PCB designer is an important PCB design software that is equally popular among both professionals and students. It has a unique set of features which aid the designer in placing and routing. It has quite handy User Interface. The only problem in this software is that you need to import netlist from Orcad schematic capture into the software before doing anything else. The User Interface of the Allegro is as shown in the following figure:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. Altium Designer:

Altium Designer is another important software used at professional level. One of its perk is that as you are developing the schematics, the components get automatically placed in the design area of the PCB. The User Interface of the Altium Designer is as shown in the following image:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. Diptrace:

Diptrace is still another important PCB design software quite popular among engineering students. It has unique set of features readily available on the UI which makes it quite handy to use. The user interface of the Diptrace is as shown in the following image:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. Eagle:

Anyone familiar with the PCB designing must have read the word “Eagle”. Eagle is the easiest software to learn for the beginners in my opinion. It has very easy to use UI and quite straightforward tools. The User Interface of the Eagle is as shown in the following image:

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. Proteus:

Proteus is another important software for designing the PCBs. It is quite easy to use, as you design you schematics the footprints of all the components are automatically placed in the PCB design area. The user interface of the Proteus is as shown in the following figure:

That is all for now, I hope this blog would be helpful for you. In the next tutorial I will come up with more interesting topics of engineering. Till stay connected, keep reading and enjoy learning.


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