Electronic circuit simulators distributed under a free software license are available from several sources and for several computing platforms.
Analog[edit]
Its advanced simulation engine can handle both analog and digital circuits and features realtime always-on analysis. It is the perfect companion to students, hobbyists, and engineers. You use it as you would any CAD program: you add elements, connect them together, and set their properties.
- MacSpice is an electronic circuit simulator. Circuit simulation is a way of building and testing virtual models of electronic devices. It is usually cheaper and quicker to simulate a design than to build a prototype. MacSpice uses a text-file 'netlist' description of the circuit as input. This is a list of components and the nodes they connect to.
- Circuit Diagram Software for Mac, Windows and Linux. Edraw circuit diagram software is an amazingly easy-to-use and quick-to-design diagramming tool that is perfect for drawing circuits due to a massive collection of electronic circuit symbols and templates.
- Electric VLSI Design System, used to draw schematics and lay out integrated circuits
- SPICE and variants, such as Ngspice
Digital[edit]
Best Circuit Simulation Software
Mixed-signal (analog and digital)[edit]
- GNU Circuit Analysis Package (Gnucap)
- Ngspice, including digital XSPICE
- Quite Universal Circuit Simulator (Qucs)
- Xyce, capable of solving extremely large circuit problems from Sandia National Laboratories[1]
Proprietary licenses[edit]
- Infineon Designer, free online, special version of TINAcloud licensed to Infineon Technologies[2]
- LTspice, freeware, developed by Linear Technology and Analog Devices
- Micro-Cap, freeware, developed by Spectrum Software
- PLECS, free for some students, developed by Plexim
- SapWin, freeware
- TINA–TI, freeware, special version of TINA licensed to Texas Instruments[3]
See also[edit]
- List of HDL simulators, such as VHDL, Verilog, SystemVerilog.
References[edit]
- ^'Xyce'. Xyce.sandia.gov. Retrieved 2017-11-02.
- ^Infineon Designer; Infineon.
- ^TINA-TI; Texas Instruments.
The free and/or open source electronic circuit simulation software on this page allow you to design, analyse and test a circuit virtually on a computer.They simulate the behaviour ('behavior' in USEnglish) of an electronic device/circuit, and are often used because it is cheaper, quicker and often more practical to simulate a circuit thanto physically build one. The programs below may provide either analogue ('analog') or digital simulation capabilities or both, have aschematic editor, a waveform viewer, support resistors, capacitors, diodes, etc. (Please read the individual description of each program forthe actual features provided with different programs.)
Note that computer-aided design (CAD) tools can also be found on theFree and Open Source CAD Software page.
Related Pages
Free Electronic Circuit Simulation Software / Circuit Simulators
Gnucap, or the Gnu Circuit Analysis Package, is a general purpose circuit simulator that supports non-linear DC andtransient analysis, Fourier analysis and AC analysis. The simulator is interactive but can also be run in batch mode.The program is released in source code form only.
SPICE is probably one of the best known circuit simulators around. It supports non-linear DC and transient, and linear AC analyses.To quote from its documentation, your circuits may contain 'resistors, capacitors, inductors, mutual inductors, independent voltageand current sources, four types of dependent sources, lossless and lossy transmission lines (two separate implementations), switches,uniform distributed RC lines, and the five most common semiconductor devices: diodes, BJTs, JFETs, MESFETs, and MOSFETs'. The programis made up of two parts: the back-end simulator and a front-end user interface, called Nutmeg, that displays information fordata analysis and plotting. Spice3 is released under the BSD licence ('license'). KSPICE, also available from the above page, is basedon a version of SPICE3, has 'improved transient analysis of lossy transmission lines'. JSPICE is a simulator for superconductor andsemiconductor circuits and incorporates the Josephson junction model. Note that all the programs are released in source code form.You will need a compiler to create the executables to run on your system. For Spice3, you will need aC compiler that can compileK&R C, not ANSI C. The GNU gccapparently works. The program works on Unix-type systems andMSDOS.
This is a Mac version of the SPICE circuit simulator (see elsewhere onthispage for more information about SPICE). It works on both the Intel Macs as well as the older PowerPC Macs. You provide a list of componentsand the nodes these components connect to (called a 'network list' or 'netlist'), either using a text editor or a schematic captureapplication, run the command interpreter, and MacSpice builds a numerical model of the circuit and analyses it. The program appearsto be free for non-commercial use only (that is, although it uses Spice3 which is open source, the overall Mac port seems to have amore restrictive licence).
Ngspice is a mixed level, mixed signal circuit simulation engine, based on Spice, Cider and XSpice (see elsewhere onthispage). It works on Linux andFreeBSD systems. The program is released underthe GNU General Public License.
Qucs is an integrated circuit simulator with a graphical user interface (GUI). You can basically set up the circuit using the GUI,and the backend program will take your network list and simulate the signal and noise behaviour of the circuit. The data output, thesimulation results, can then be displayed. The program is released under the GNU General Public License in source code form, so youwill need to compile it yourself before you can run it.
CIDER is a mixed-level circuit and device simulator. Devices are described with technology parameters or SPICE's compact models. It isreleased in source code form, and you will need a Ccompiler to create the executable before you can use it. It was tested under Ultrix, SunOS, AIX, and Unix, although the authorsexpect that the program should compile under other Unix-type systems. Note that Cider has been incorporated in Ngspice, listed elsewhereonthis page, which runs on Linux.
Electronic Circuit Software Free
[Update: this site does not appear to be available any more. Note that XSPICE is fully integrated intoNgspice (listed above).] XSPICE is an extension to SPICE (also listed on thisFreeCircuit Simulation Software page)that includes the ability to use code modelling ('modeling') as well as simulate of digital components through an embedded event drivenalgorithm. Its code model library includes functional blocks like multipliers, summers, integrators, magnetics models, limiters, S-domain transferfunctions, digital gates, etc. The program is provided in source code form, and is released into the public domain.
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Analog Circuit Simulation Software
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