Schematic capture

Article summary

Schematic capture or schematic entry is a step in the design cycle of electronic design automation (EDA) at which the electronic diagram, or electronic schematic of the designed electronic circuit, is created by a designer. This is done interactively with the help of a schematic capture tool also known as schematic editor. The circuit design is the first step of actual design of an electronic circuit. Typically sketches are drawn on paper, and then entered into a computer using a schematic editor. Therefore schematic entry is said to be a front-end operation of several others in the design flow. Despite the complexity of modern components – huge ball grid arrays and tiny passive components – schematic capture is easier today than it has been for many years. CAD software is easier to use and is available in full-featured expensive packages, very capable mid-range packages that sometimes have free versions and completely free versions that are either open source or directly linked to a printed circuit board fabrication company. In past years, schematic diagrams with mostly discrete components were fairly readable. However, with the newer high pin-count parts and with the almost universal use of standard letter- or A4-sized paper, schematics have become less so.…

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