ECAD /EDA utilities assist developers in developing electronic systems like circuit boards that are printed as well as integrated circuits. The tools tend to be very useful and the reality of there being a few ‘very good’ ones assists developers in picking the ideal ones for their requirements.
GTKWave
This waveform viewer is fully featured and relies on GTK+ and is able to read LXT, FST, GHW, LXT2 and FST files and typical Verilog EVCD/VCD files and even support their views. Since the tool is developed to deal with many signals simultaneously, it supports 3 modes (Hierarchy, Tree and Regular expression) for searching signals. Moreover, it has the capability to show data in various formats like unsigned or signed decimal, ASCII, octal, hexadecimal, analog, binary and binary.
ChipVault
Chipvault as a Vi wrapper that relies on terminal is useful in managing and developing VHDL RTL and Verilog based on designs for digital chips known as FPGA and ASIC. The tool was developed in 2001 by ASIC designer for enhancing his everyday workflow.
Electric
This EDA tool is useful in drawing schematics as well as doing layout for integrated circuit. Electric is able to handle languages for describing hardware like Verilog and VHDL. Now, the tool is part of GNU project, moreover it is developed using Java and issued as an open source and free software.
Fritzing
This open source application initiative supports artists as well as designers who are ready to shift from material prototyping to real product. This software is developed with the aim of processing as well as Arduino and enables a researchers, artists hobbyists or designers to document prototypes that are Arduino-based and developing PCB layout useful in manufacturing.
KiCad
This open source application suite is useful in EDA. The tool facilitates schematics designs useful in electronic circuits as well as their alteration to PCB designs.
Oregano
This graphic application is useful in capturing schematics and simulating electrical circuits. Actual simulation occurs through Gnucap or ngspice engines. Oreganon is akin to KTechlab and gEDA. The tool uses GNOME technology; moreover, it is supposed to function in Unix environments that are open source like FreeBSD or Linux.
PCB
This open source and free software suite is useful in EDA especially for PCB layout. This tool utilizes GTK+ in its widgets for GUI.
XCircuit
This X11/UNIX and Windows software is useful in drawing publishable schematic diagrams for electric circuits as well as other associated figures and producing circuit netlists via schematic capture.