Transistorgrab

For the hobbyist there are not many powerful and free schematic and layout software. For Linux and Mac OS X there is the software package gEDA. With that you can draw schematics and create layouts. This article shows how you can create even hierachical designs with that software.

Hierarchical schematics help to split the complexity of a schematic into seperate modules. So you can draw your schematic as a block schematic and later on you can create the seperate circuits.

For example you draw your power supply as a block that only provides the voltages for the other modules. The acutal circuit for the power supply will be created later on a seperate schematics.

The following short list outlines how to create a hierarchical design with gschem, the schematics editor of gEDA. A detailed manual is attached after the list.

• install gEDA on your computer
• start gschem
• delete the drawing fram from the schematics
• draw the symbol for each module with the necessary pins and save it
• create the gafrc file
• create the first sheet for your schematics
• insert all symbols for your modules on the sheet
• connect the symbols to the schematics of each module
• create the schematics for eacht module

gschem hierarchical tutorial