 | |
| Developer(s) | Thomas Nau |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 1990 [1] |
| Stable release | 4.3.0[2] 
/ 1 March 2021 |
| Repository | |
| Operating system | Unix-like (BSDs, Linux, Solaris, OS X (experimental) and Microsoft Windows |
| Type | Electronic design automation (EDA) |
| License | GPLv2 |
| Website | pcb |
PCB is a free and open-source software suite for electronic design automation (EDA) - for printed circuit boards (PCB) layout. It uses GTK+ for its GUI widgets.
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.
