PCB (software)

PCB was first written by Thomas Nau for an Atari ST in 1990 and ported to UNIX and X11 in 1994. Initially PCB was not intended to be a professional layout system but as a tool for individuals to do small-scale development of hardware.^[1][3] The second release 1.2 introduced user menus. This made PCB easier to use and increased its popularity.^[1] Harry Eaton took over PCB development beginning with Release 1.5, although he contributed some code from Release 1.4.3.

PCB includes a topological autorouter named Toporouter, developed by Anthony Blake in a Google-funded open source project mentored by DJ Delorie in 2008.^[4] It is mostly based on an implementation of the algorithms described in Tal Dayan's 1997 PhD thesis, "Rubberband based topological router".^[4][5] This router has meanwhile been adapted for use with the open-source KiCad project as well.

In 2013, pcb-rnd was forked from PCB.

• Scalable fonts
• Layer groups to keep signals together
• Add on device drivers
• Gerber RS-274X and NC Drill output support
• Centroid (X-Y) data output
• PostScript and Encapsulated PostScript output
• Rats-nest generation from simple net lists
• Automatic clearance around pins that pierce a polygon
• Flags for pins and vias
• Groups of action commands can be undone by a single undo
• Simple design rule checker (DRC) - checks for minimum spacing and overlap rules
• Drawing directly on the silk layer
• Viewable solder-mask layers and editing
• Netlist window
• Netlist entry by drawing rats
• Auto router
• Snap to pins and pads
• Element files and libraries that can contain whole sub-layouts, metric grids
• Up to 16 copper layer designs by default
• Trace optimizer
• Rats nest
• Connectivity verification
• Can interoperate with free schematic capture tools such as gEDA and XCircuit
• GNU autoconf/automake based build system
• PCB is Free Software

• Comparison of EDA software
• List of free electronics circuit simulators