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The
Best free
analog circuit simulators We examined 30 free analog circuit simulation packages to see which of them is appropriate for real circuit analysis and design work.
Leland Teschler • Executive Editor
120
January 2022
Electronics.1-22_Vs5_LT-MS.LL.indd 120
Blogs and online forums catering to engineers often mention all kinds of free packages and services aimed at circuit designers. Trouble is, a lot of these free resources are mainly useful for students and hobbyists. They lack the facilities that would make them valuable for engineers designing or analyzing circuits going into manufactured products. To help find the most useful packages from amongst the sea of online debris, we surveyed the field of free circuit simulators mentioned in posts and forums. We came up with 30 packages and online apps that seemed to offer benefits of use in actual circuit work. A few overall impressions: Sometimes open-source simulators mentioned in older blog posts have just disappeared. Other packages labeled as circuit simulators are, in fact, just schematic capture programs augmented with some printed circuit board layout facilities. A number of programs do, in fact, perform analog circuit simulation but were created by university researchers who seem to have lost interest in supporting them. It’s easy to find simulators whose last update predates the invention of the iPhone. www.designworldonline.com
DESIGN WORLD
1/17/22 10:14 AM
