

These tools are important parts of the front-end engineering process before you start creating your PCB layout. Even your free electronic circuit design app should help you scale up to higher levels of complexity and onto the factory floor.Īny of the tools in the list below can help you design circuits, schematics, mechanical drawings, simulations, and embedded applications for your PCB.

The design applications you use should go beyond electronic prototyping software or simple electronic circuit design software. Designers need a whole host of tools to help them build their products, ranging from drawing programs and simulators, to PCB layout applications and manufacturing programs. There are many open-source products available for download to help speed up your PCB design process and help you engineer your system. If you have a Mac or a Linux machine, you will need to install a virtual machine and run a Windows instance in order to use Altium.Free Design Software for Engineering and PCB Layout Once you have these concepts internalized, changing tools will become easier.Īltium 20 only runs on Windows Operating Systems. These concepts are useful not matter the tool you use in the future. We will teach you how to draw effective schematics, the basics on board layout, how to do a good board layout, and how to take a board into production. For board design we use Altium Studio (latest version is Altium Studio 20).Ī common question is – would it be ok to use another tool? Unfortunately the answer is this is not possible- we cannot provide support for people who want to use other tools such as Kicad or Eagle.īut do not worry! Even if Altium is not the tool of your choice, what is important is that this class will teach you the basic principles of sound hardware architecture design.
