PCB is an open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 software suite for electronic design automation

Electronic design automation

Electronic design automation is a category of software tools for designing electronic systems such as printed circuit boards and integrated circuits...

 (EDA) - for printed circuit board

Printed circuit board

A printed circuit board, or PCB, is used to mechanically support and electrically connect electronic components using conductive pathways, tracks or signal traces etched from copper sheets laminated onto a non-conductive substrate. It is also referred to as printed wiring board or etched wiring...

s (PCB) layout.

History

PCB was not the first written by Thomas Nau for an Atari ST

Atari ST

The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals...

 in 1990 and ported to UNIX

Unix-like

A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification....

 and X11

X Window System

The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...

 in 1994. Initially not intended as a professional layout system, but as a tool for people that does some home-developing of hardware.
Harry Eaton took over pcb development beginning with Release 1.5, although he contributed some code beginning with Release 1.4.3

Features

• Scalable fonts
• Layer groups to keep signals together
• Add on device drivers
• Gerber RS-274X
  Gerber File
  The Gerber format is a file format used by printed circuit board industry software to describe the images of a printed circuit board . The Gerber format is the de-facto industry standard for printed circuit board image transfer.There are two versions. RS-274X is the most commonly used today...
  
   and NC Drill
  NC-CAM
  NC-CAM is a computer-aided manufacturing software program introduced in 1989, and used by printed circuit board manufacturers to create, modify, and optimize the CNC program files used by printed circuit board drilling and routing machines...
  
   output support
• Centroid (X-Y) data output
• 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...
  
   and Encapsulated PostScript
  Encapsulated PostScript
  Encapsulated PostScript, or EPS, is a DSC-conforming PostScript document with additional restrictions which is intended to be usable as a graphics file format...
  
   output
• Rats-nest generation from simple net lists
• Automatic clearance around pins that pierce a polygon
• Flags for pins
  Lead (electronics)
  In electronics, a lead is an electrical connection consisting of a length of wire or soldering pad that comes from a device. Leads are used for physical support, to transfer power, to probe circuits , and to transmit information...
  
   and vias
  Via (electronics)
  A via is a vertical electrical connection between different layers of conductors in a physical electronic circuit.- In IC :In integrated circuit design, a via is a small opening in an insulating oxide layer that allows a conductive connection between different layers. A via on an integrated circuit...
  
  
• Groups of action commands can be undone by a single undo
• Simple design rule checker
  Design rule checking
  Design Rule Checking or Check is the area of Electronic Design Automation that determines whether the physical layout of a particular chip layout satisfies a series of recommended parameters called Design Rules...
  
   (DRC) - checks for minimum spacing and overlap rules
• Drawing directly on the silk layer
• Viewable solder-mask
  Solder mask
  Solder mask or solder resist is a lacquer-like layer of polymer that provides a permanent protective coating for the copper traces of a printed circuit board and prevents solder from bridging between conductors, thereby preventing short circuits. Solder mask was created primarily to facilitate...
  
   layers and editing
• Netlist window
• Netlist entry by drawing rats
• Auto router
• Snap to pins and pads
• Element files and libraries that can contain whole sub-layouts, metric grids
  Metric system
  The metric system is an international decimalised system of measurement. France was first to adopt a metric system, in 1799, and a metric system is now the official system of measurement, used in almost every country in the world...
  
  
• Up to 16 copper layer designs by default
• Trace optimizer
• Rats nest
• Connectivity verification
• Can interoperate with free schematic capture tools such as gEDA
  GEDA
  The term gEDA refers to two things:# A set of software applications used for electronic design released under the GPL. As such, gEDA is an ECAD or EDA application suite. gEDA is mostly oriented towards printed circuit board design...
  
   and XCircuit
  Xcircuit
  XCircuit is a Unix/X11 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...
  
  
• GNU autoconf/automake based build system
• PCB is Free Software

External links

• pcb.gpleda.org/pcb-cvs/pcb.html