The Proteus Design Suite is a proprietary software tool suite used primarily for

electronic design automation Electronic design automation (EDA), also referred to as electronic computer-aided design (ECAD), is a category of software tools for designing Electronics, electronic systems such as integrated circuits and printed circuit boards. The tools wo ...

. The software is used mainly by electronic

design engineer A design engineer is an engineer focused on the engineering design process in any of the various engineering disciplines (including civil, mechanical, electrical, chemical, textiles, aerospace, nuclear, manufacturing, systems, and struct ...

s and technicians to create

schematic A schematic, or schematic diagram, is a designed representation of the elements of a system using abstract, graphic symbols rather than realistic pictures. A schematic usually omits all details that are not relevant to the key information the sc ...

s and electronic prints for manufacturing

printed circuit board A printed circuit board (PCB), also called printed wiring board (PWB), is a Lamination, laminated sandwich structure of electrical conduction, conductive and Insulator (electricity), insulating layers, each with a pattern of traces, planes ...

s. It was developed in

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...

, England by Labcenter Electronics Ltd and is available in English, French, Spanish and Chinese languages.

History

The first version of what is now the Proteus Design Suite was called PC-B and was written by the company chairman, John Jameson, for

DOS DOS (, ) is a family of disk-based operating systems for IBM PC compatible computers. The DOS family primarily consists of IBM PC DOS and a rebranded version, Microsoft's MS-DOS, both of which were introduced in 1981. Later compatible syste ...

in 1988. Schematic Capture support followed in 1990, with a port to the Windows environment shortly thereafter. Mixed mode SPICE Simulation was first integrated into Proteus in 1996 and microcontroller simulation then arrived in Proteus in 1998. Shape based autorouting was added in 2002 and 2006 saw another major product update with 3D Board Visualisation. More recently, a dedicated IDE for simulation was added in 2011 and MCAD import/export was included in 2015. Support for high speed design was added in 2017. Feature led product releases are typically biannual, while maintenance based service packs are released as it is required.

Product Modules

The Proteus Design Suite is a Windows application for

schematic capture Schematic capture or schematic entry is a step in the design cycle of electronic design automation (EDA) at which the electronic diagram, or electronic schematic of the designed electronic circuit, is created by a designer. This is done interac ...

simulation A simulation is an imitative representation of a process or system that could exist in the real world. In this broad sense, simulation can often be used interchangeably with model. Sometimes a clear distinction between the two terms is made, in ...

, and PCB (

Printed Circuit Board A printed circuit board (PCB), also called printed wiring board (PWB), is a Lamination, laminated sandwich structure of electrical conduction, conductive and Insulator (electricity), insulating layers, each with a pattern of traces, planes ...

) layout design. It can be purchased in many configurations, depending on the size of designs being produced and the requirements for microcontroller simulation. All PCB Design products include an autorouter and basic mixed mode SPICE simulation capabilities.

Schematic Capture

Schematic capture in the Proteus Design Suite is used for both the simulation of designs and as the design phase of a PCB layout project. It is therefore a core component and is included with all product configurations.

Microcontroller Simulation

The micro-controller simulation in Proteus works by applying either a hex file or a debug file to the microcontroller part on the schematic. It is then co-simulated along with any analog and digital electronics connected to it. This enables its use in a broad spectrum of project prototyping in areas such as motor control, temperature control and user interface design. It also finds use in the general hobbyist community and, since no hardware is required, is convenient to use as a training or teaching tool. Support is available for co-simulation of: * Microchip Technologies PIC10, PIC12, PIC16, PIC18, PIC24, dsPIC33 microcontrollers * Atmel AVR (and

Arduino Arduino () is an Italian open-source hardware and open-source software, software company, project, and user community that designs and manufactures single-board microcontrollers and microcontroller kits for building digital devices. Its hardwar ...

), 8051 and

ARM Cortex-M3 The ARM Cortex-M is a group of 32-bit reduced instruction set computer, RISC ARM architecture, ARM processor cores licensed by Arm (company), ARM Limited. These cores are optimized for low-cost and energy-efficient integrated circuits, which h ...

microcontrollers * NXP 8051, ARM7,

ARM Cortex-M0 The ARM Cortex-M is a group of 32-bit RISC ARM processor cores licensed by ARM Limited. These cores are optimized for low-cost and energy-efficient integrated circuits, which have been embedded in tens of billions of consumer devices. Thoug ...

and ARM Cortex-M3 microcontrollers *

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American multinational semiconductor company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It is one of the top 10 semiconductor companies worldwide based on sales volume. The company's focus is on developing analog ...

MSP430, PICCOLO DSP and ARM Cortex-M3 microcontrollers *Parallax Basic Stamp, Freescale HC11, 8086 microcontrollers

PCB Design

The PCB Layout module is automatically given connectivity information in the form of a

netlist In electronic design, a netlist is a description of the connectivity of an electronic circuit. In its simplest form, a netlist consists of a list of the electronic components in a circuit and a list of the nodes they are connected to. A netwo ...

from the schematic capture module. It applies this information, together with the user specified

design rules In electronic design automation, a design rule is a geometric constraint imposed on circuit board, semiconductor device, and integrated circuit (IC) designers to ensure their designs function properly, reliably, and can be produced with acceptabl ...

and various design automation tools, to assist with error free board design. PCB's of up to 16 copper layers can be produced with design size limited by product configuration.

3D Verification

The 3D Viewer module allows the board under development to be viewed in 3D together with a semi-transparent height plane that represents the boards enclosure. STEP output can then be used to transfer to mechanical CAD software such as

Solidworks SolidWorks (stylized as SOLIDWORKS) is a brand of software used for solid modeling computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided engineering (CAE). It was one of the first 3D CAD applications designed to run on a desktop PC. The brand is owned ...

Autodesk Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that provides software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquarte ...

for accurate mounting and positioning of the board.

References

Circuits Gallery (October 2014)
"Arduino and Proteus VSM"
Future Engineers Proteus VSM project

Online Training with Microchip and Proteus VS
"Get Started with MPLAB® X IDE and Microchip Tools"
Elecnote Hobby Project
"Electronic circuits based on PIC microcontrollers and Arduino boards"

External links

Official siteDiscussion Forums
{{CAD software Computer-aided design software for Windows Computer-aided design software Electronic design automation companies Electronic design automation software 1988 software