Xcircuit
Encyclopedia
XCircuit is a Unix
/X11 (and Windows
, too, with an X-Server running) program for drawing publishable-quality electrical circuit schematic diagrams and related figures, and produce circuit netlists through schematic capture. XCircuit regards circuits as inherently hierarchical, and writes both hierarchical PostScript
output and hierarchical SPICE
netlists. Circuit components are saved in and retrieved from libraries which are fully editable. XCircuit does not separate artistic expression from circuit drawing; it maintains flexibility in style without compromising the power of schematic capture.
XCircuit was written and is maintained by Tim Edwards, currently with Multigig Inc., formerly with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. XCircuit started life in the summer of 1993 as a drawing program to render circuit diagrams for an undergraduate electrical engineering course in the Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering Part-time programs. Since then, it has expanded to encompass schematic capture and is used by people all over the world for both presentations and as an EDA (Electronic Design Automation) tool.
PCB layout editing can be accomplished with the program "PCB
" that can use net-lists etc., from XCircuit.
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
/X11 (and Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, too, with an X-Server running) program for drawing publishable-quality electrical circuit schematic diagrams and related figures, and produce circuit netlists through schematic capture. XCircuit regards circuits as inherently hierarchical, and writes both hierarchical PostScript
PostScript
PostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. It is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas. Adobe PostScript 3 is also the worldwide printing and imaging...
output and hierarchical SPICE
SPICE
SPICE is a general-purpose, open source analog electronic circuit simulator.It is a powerful program that is used in integrated circuit and board-level design to check the integrity of circuit designs and to predict circuit behavior.- Introduction :Unlike board-level designs composed of discrete...
netlists. Circuit components are saved in and retrieved from libraries which are fully editable. XCircuit does not separate artistic expression from circuit drawing; it maintains flexibility in style without compromising the power of schematic capture.
XCircuit was written and is maintained by Tim Edwards, currently with Multigig Inc., formerly with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. XCircuit started life in the summer of 1993 as a drawing program to render circuit diagrams for an undergraduate electrical engineering course in the Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering Part-time programs. Since then, it has expanded to encompass schematic capture and is used by people all over the world for both presentations and as an EDA (Electronic Design Automation) tool.
PCB layout editing can be accomplished with the program "PCB
PCB (software)
PCB is an open source software suite for electronic design automation - for printed circuit boards layout.-History:PCB was not the first written by Thomas Nau for an Atari ST in 1990 and ported to UNIX and X11 in 1994...
" that can use net-lists etc., from XCircuit.