XSCHEM : schematic capture
and netlisting EDA tool
Xschem is a schematic capture program, it allows creation of
hierarchical representation of circuits with a top down approach .
By focusing on interfaces, hierarchy and instance properties a
complex system can be described in terms of simpler building blocks.
A VHDL or Verilog or Spice netlist can be generated from
the drawn schematic, allowing
the simulation of the circuit. Key feature of the program is its
drawing engine written in C and using directly the Xlib drawing
primitives; this gives very good speed performance, even on very
big circuits. The user interface is built with the Tcl-Tk toolkit,
tcl is also the extension language used.
Features
- hierarchical schematic drawings, no limits on size
- any object in the schematic can have any sort of properties
(generics in VHDL, parameters in Spice or Verilog)
- new Spice/Verilog primitives can be created, and the netlist format can be defined by the user
- tcl extension language allows the creation of scripts; any user command in the drawing window has an associated tcl comand
- VHDL / Verilog / Spice netlist, ready for simulation
- Behavioral VHDL / Verilog code can be embedded as one of the
properties of the schematic block,
Xschem runs on UNIX systems with X11 and Tcl-Tk toolkit installed.
Project status
| date | version | notes |
| 19980804 | 0.1 | First draft |
| 20040202 | 1.0 | First release |
| 20161203 |
2.0 |
Second release, uploading on sourceforge |
| 20200217 |
2.9.5 |
2.9.5 release, uploading on repo.hu and sourceforge |
| 20210211 |
2.9.9 |
2.9.9 release, skywater 130nm pdk integration |
| 20210911 |
3.0.0 |
3.0.0 release, now including windows binary distribution |
| 20220721 |
3.1.0 |
3.1.0 release, ability to display simulation graphs and embeded images/logos |
| 20230521 |
3.4.0 |
3.4.0 release, instance based implementation selection, graph exporting in svg and pdf, much more schematic annotation (live transient/sweep annotation), schematic/symbol PCELLS |
| 20241113 |
3.4.6 |
3.4.6 release. |
Documentation
Download RELEASED Source code
Download Development source code
- SVN on repo.hu (primary development site):
svn checkout svn://repo.hu/xschem/trunk xschem-src - SVN on sourceforge.net:
svn checkout https://svn.code.sf.net/p/xschem/code/ xschem-src - GIT on github.com:
git clone https://github.com/StefanSchippers/xschem.git xschem-src
Download Windows Binary
License
The software is released under
the GNU GPL, General Public License
Contact
Anyone interested in this project please contact me at the following address:[email protected]
Software requirements:
- X11- tcl-tk libs and developent files
- c99 compiler
- bison (only for compiling the grammar parser)
- flex (only for compiling the lexical analyzer
- Xpm library and -dev header files
- awk (tested with gawk and mawk)
Systems tested:
- Solaris sparc
- Windows (with the cygwin layer and cygwin/Xorg X11 server, plus the tcl/tk toolkit and the -dev libraries)
Screenshots
- analog circuit example
- digital system for VHDL simulation
