Aspen Labs and Digi-Key Launch PCBWeb Designer® – A Free, Full-Featured Schematic Capture and Layout Design Tool

Easy-to-Use EDA/CAD Software Links to 300,000 Available Parts

BOISE, Idaho & THIEF RIVER FALLS, Minn.--()--Aspen Labs, a joint-venture partner of Hearst Electronics Group, in cooperation with Digi-Key, launched PCBWeb Designer®, a free schematic capture and layout EDA/CAD tool for design engineers. The new software is available globally today as a full-license application with no limitations on number of parts, size or layer count, supporting a standard Gerber output.

PCBWeb Designer is exclusively linked to Digi-Key’s broad inventory of over four million searchable electronic components including 300,000 ready-to-place parts. The easy-to-use schematic and layout tool is available today, free of charge, at www.pcbweb.com.

“PCBWeb Designer is unique in the industry as a full-featured design tool available at no cost to the engineer,” said Robert Lind, director of business operations at Aspen Labs.

“By linking to Digi-Key’s vast selection of inventory, we simplify and accelerate the entire product design process; engineers can place a part in a schematic, route the PCB, and then proceed to managing and ordering the entire bill of materials.”

PCBWeb Designer includes built-in board and component ordering, allowing engineers to easily send their design to fabrication or order a complete bill of materials with the single click of a button. The free software enables multi-sheet and multi-gate schematic capture, multi-layer PCB layout with copper pour and a custom parts editor. In addition, PCBWeb features an integrated bill of materials (BOM) manager and an optional web publishing feature that allows for design-sharing within a browser format.

PCBWeb Designer is part of a broader suite of EDA/CAD design software tools offered by Digi-Key. Aspen Labs and Digi-Key also jointly developed the popular Scheme-it® – a schematic and/or block diagramming tool for concept-to-prototype sketches. There have been over 36,000 designs created using Scheme-it. The third tool in the companies’ jointly developed EDA trifecta is PartSim, an easy-to-use design simulation system. Scheme-It is available on Digi-Key.com and PartSim is available at www.partsim.com.

“Our strategy is to offer the design engineer a broad range of EDA tools to support different levels of product design needs and requirements,” said Randall Restle, Director of Engineering for Digi-Key. “This new offering from Aspen Labs is yet another option for the design engineer seeking new and better ways to take a product from concept to prototype to production.”

Digi-Key plans to announce additional design tools next month, expanding their EDA/CAD tool suite to include a broader spectrum of tools from free to subscription-level offerings, appealing to the ever-changing needs of today’s design engineer.

About Digi-Key Corporation
Digi-Key Corporation, based in Thief River Falls, Minn., is a global, full-service provider of both prototype/design and production quantities of electronic components, offering more than four million products from over 650 quality name-brand manufacturers. With over one million products in stock and an impressive selection of online resources, Digi-Key is committed to stocking the broadest range of electronic components in the industry and providing the best service possible to its customers. Additional information and access to Digi-Key’s broad product offering is available at www.digikey.com.

About Aspen Labs
Aspen Labs is a technology company that provides online tools and resources for hardware designers. This includes EEWeb.com, an online engineering community and PartSim.com, a free online circuit simulator. Its new printed-circuit-board design tool, PCBWeb Designer, is available for free on their website www.pcbweb.com. You can learn more about Aspen Labs by visiting their website at www.aspenlabs.com.

Contacts

Editorial Contact for Digi-Key Corporation
Kayla Krosschell, 1-800-344-4539 x1098
Corporate Communications Specialist
Kayla.Krosschell@digikey.com
publicrelations@digikey.com

Release Summary

Aspen Labs and Digi-Key Launch PCBWeb Designer® – A Free, Full-Featured Schematic Capture and Layout Design Tool

Contacts

Editorial Contact for Digi-Key Corporation
Kayla Krosschell, 1-800-344-4539 x1098
Corporate Communications Specialist
Kayla.Krosschell@digikey.com
publicrelations@digikey.com