EDWinXP or Electronic Design for Windows is a commercially available PCB design integrated CAD/CAE package. An electronic design engineer can use the computerized tools provided in EDWinXP to create an electronic circuit, design the PCB and fabricate PCBs. EDWinXP may be seen as a system of seamlessly integrated, task oriented, modules covering all stages of the design process from capturing the idea of a circuit in the form of a Schematic Diagram to generate a full set of documentation for manufacturing and assembling of PCBs. Additionally the package includes various validation tools ensuring correctness and integrity of designed circuits.
Complete design information is stored in the integrated project simultaneously accessible by Schematic Diagram Editor, PCB Layout Editor, Fabrication Output Manager and Simulators. This simulator provides EDWinXP users with the facility to analyze and validate the functionality and behaviour of circuits captured in the form of schematic diagrams. The EDSpice simulator is based on SPICE3F5 and XSPICE with a number of extensions and improvements. The University of California developed SPICE3F5 and Georgia Tech Research Institute developed XSPICE. SPICE is well known in the electronic industry as general-purpose circuit simulation program for non linear DC, non-linear Transient and linear ac analysis. XSPICE extends SPICE3’s capabilities to allow simulation of mixed signal (analog/digital) and mixed level circuits.
Front and back annotation of all design changes is fully automatic. EDWinXP comes with an extensive part library, which may be updated, customized and enhanced with the help of Library Editor
All data about hierarchical electronic design (which may consist of several circuits and sub-circuits) is stored in a single database, along with PCB layouts for every board in the design, i.e. the software works on the concept of integrated project database. In other words, the documentation of a complete electronic device may be stored in one disk file. All parts of the design project – schematics, PCB layout and PCB fabrication drawings and documents are simultaneously accessible by task oriented software modules of the system. Changes in the design, entered on diagrams are automatically and in real time annotated on PCB layout design and vice versa.