PREV UP NEXT

WHY XSCHEM?

Ex frustrated Cadence Virtuoso user.

• Don't want to wait a minute for a simple amplifier netlist.
• Creating new components was way too complicated (you need a CDF, ask your CAD support and file a ticket).
• Memory Hog, keeps growing until all Virtual memory exhausted, then crash.
• Start your icfb session, go get a coffee, when back it's hopefully up and running.
• One process handles all design windows. Process crashes, all work on all windows lost.
• Many functions (search/replace/highlight and others) take way too long to complete. Everything is done in skill.
• Proprietary file format.
• Computation intensive tasks should not be done in any scripting language (Skill, Lisp, Python)

Most Open source schematic editors are not for VLSI

• Gschem (or its fork, lepton-schematic) and Kicad's eeschema, can not handle complex VLSI designs.
• Xcircuit is one of the very few Open Source tools i found that is good for VLSI design. Has very accurate graphics rendering, allows arbitrary rotations, uses postscript as schematic save format. This makes scripted generation of schematic files a bit complex. Certainly one of the best tools from graphic quality standpoint.