PCBPOWER PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARD MANUFACTURER

KHUSHAL PANCHAL PCBPOWER

How to Choose the Best PCB Designing Software?

In market you can find number of software available for PCB designing and it is quite difficult to rate them.
Generally everybody rate the PCB designing software for which they find the satisfactory answers for their
questions / expectations / criteria for the software. List out your own questions / expectation /criteria and
get answers for them for the available software in the market and then do comparison based on those
lists and decide for the best suitable designing software to you.
I have tried to list out some of those general questions every PCB designer has when he chooses any
designing software:
Which Are My Major Considerations For The Designing Software?
Some examples for major consideration:
Price of software
Maintainability of the software
Learning curve
Capability of the software
What Are My Expectations From The Software?
General expectation from PCB designer for the designing software:
Schematic drawing facility
Online electrical check facility to avoid stupid mistakes
PCB Layout
On line Design rule check facility
No. of schematic sheets supported per design
Import schematic option
Output gerber-x files
Supportive o/s system preferences
Design reuse facility
Why EAGLE is The Best PCB Designing Software?
Eagle is offering the same core functionality as the expensive commercial PCB design software, at affordable
pricing. Eagle has been awarded as Product of the year eight times by a leading German electronics magazine.

Eagle is very popular designing software among open source hardware designers, small design houses, hobbyist
and students of educational institutes. For that reason there are a lot of extensive component and footprint
libraries available for many of the parts used by hobbyists and the open source community.

PCBPOWER PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARD MANUFACTURER

KHUSHAL PANCHAL PCBPOWER

Eagle offers a full featured version of the program free limited only by the PCB size, and includes free technical
support. Eagle is easy to maintain across the multiple computers.

Eagle is easy to learn and easy to use also lot of help available online for getting started with it.
Eagle is Compatible with Windows, Linux, Mac.
Eagle includes of 3 modules: Schematic Editor, Board Editor and Autorouter.
Schematic Editor Features:
Supports multiple schematic sheets upto 999 sheets for one circuit board
Connections between sheets can be defined.
Simple copying of parts
Replace function for parts with consistency loss between schematic and layout



Layout Editor Features:
PCBPOWER PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARD MANUFACTURER

KHUSHAL PANCHAL PCBPOWER



Provides real time annotation with schematic
Components can be placed in any angle with a precision of 1 degree.
Changes done to the schematics are immediately reflected on the board in real time and vice
versa.
Supports blind and buried vias.
Supports for BGA components.
Output of manufacturing data for pen plotters, photo plotters and drilling machines with the CAM
Processor
Autorouter Features:
Autorouter will rout the connection with user defined DRC rules.
Change between manual and automatic routing at any time
Takes into consideration various net class
PCBPOWER PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARD MANUFACTURER

KHUSHAL PANCHAL PCBPOWER



Eagle is The Best Designing Tool for Those Who Fit in The Profile Defined Here:
Small to mid-size design team (<10 engineers) and looking for low cost and high quality design
tool.
Any design team can use it.
R & D department of a large company
Educational institute teaching the use of CAD software.
Developing and designing electronics system for fun as a part of his hobby.
Overview on Pleasing Licensing Terms:
Eagle offers very pleasing licensing terms: EAGLE Light, EAGLE Standard & EAGLE Professional.
Comparison between commercial licenses is as given below:
Licenses

Features
EAGLE Light EAGLE Standard EAGLE
Professional
Maximum Board
Size
3 inch x 4 inch 6 inch x 4 inch 150 inch x 150 inch
Routing layers 2 layers 6 layers Upto 16 layers
Schematic sheets
per design
1 schematic sheet 99 schematic sheet 999 schematic sheets
Multi user option Not applicable Available (3, 5, 10, 30, 50
users)
Available (3, 5, 10,
30, 50 users)
Possible
Combination
Schematic+Layout+Autorouter Schematic
Layout
Layout+Schematic
Layout+Autorouter
Layout+Schematic+Autorouter
All combinations are
possible as shown
beside.

For further details, Please contact sales@pcbpower.com