Electronic Design Automation (EDA) is a type of software that enables individuals to design electronic systems. These systems can be printed circuit boards (which mechanically support and electrically connect electronic components using conductive pathways) and integrated circuits (an electronic circuit manufactured by lithography, or the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material). The EDA tools enable chip designers to design and analyze entire semiconductor chips.
The electronic design market has witnessed rapid expansion in recent years, with the market becoming increasingly more global. With the rise of semiconductor industries in many emerging countries, such as China, good quality EDA software is in strong demand. EDA is a complicated business, involving a diverse set of software algorithms and applications that are required for the design of intricate next generation semiconductor and electronics products. EDA tools assist designers capture and verify the functional and physical characteristics of their designs before they actually manufacture them. They also allow designers to design complex products, which reduces the time to bring the electronic system to market, and keep costs within budget.
There are a wide range of EDA tools out that are released under an open source license which let developers customize, and create their latest designs. To provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we’ve compiled a list of 19 high quality free Linux EDA applications. Hopefully, there will be something of interest here for anyone who wants to design electronic systems.
Let’s explore the 19 EDA tools at hand. For each title we have compiled its own portal page, a full description with an in-depth analysis of its features, a screenshot of the software in action, together with links to relevant resources.
| Electronic Design Automation | |
|---|---|
| gEDA | Full suite and toolkit of Electronic Design Automation tools |
| Qucs-S | Graphical interface for SPICE circuit simulation engines |
| Digital | Digital logic designer and circuit simulator |
| LibrePCB | Software to develop printed circuit boards |
| Fritzing | Suited to the needs of designers and artists |
| Magic | VLSI layout editor, extraction, and DRC tool |
| KiCad | Software suite for the creation of electronic schematics |
| QElectroTech | Design electric diagrams |
| PyOPUS | Library for simulation-based optimization of arbitrary systems |
| KTechLab | IDE for electronic and PIC microcontroller circuit design and simulation |
| KLayout | GDS and OASIS file viewer and editor |
| DIYLC | Circuit layout and schematic drawing tool |
| Horizon EDA | Supports an integrated end-to-end workflow for printed circuit board design |
| xschem | Schematic editor for VLSI/Asic/Analog custom designs |
| Ringdove | EDA suite of multiple software components |
| Electric | The Electric VLSI Design System |
| FidoCadJ | Offers a large library of electronics and electronic engineering symbols |
| Lepton | Suite of software tools for designing electronics |
| Kactus2 | IP-XACT based SoC design and IP integration tool |
This article has been updated to reflect the changes outlined in our recent announcement.
 Explore our carefully curated directory of recommended free and open source software, covering every major software category.The directory forms part of our extensive collection of articles for Linux enthusiasts. It includes hundreds of detailed reviews, together with free and open source alternatives to proprietary software from companies such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. LinuxLinks also covers interesting projects worth exploring, Linux-compatible hardware, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Know a useful free and open source Linux application that we haven’t covered? Tell us about it using our submission form. |
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.
KLayout is a great open source tool for mask design and lay-out and creation of .gds files for sending to the mask maker. It has a nice cross section tool for viewing also.
That’s a really good shout, J. I’ve only recently been introduced to KLayout, and it’s a really useful Qt-based GDS and OASIS file viewer. And it’s an editor tool. It’s cross-platform and open source. It’s only got 100 stars on GitHub which is scandalous really.
Horizon EDA is easy to use, looks good and is very fast. Probably the only one on the list with export to ODB++