Feature overview

Sane and simple part management

Easily manage parts, packages and symbols with the pool manager (also see What is a Pool?):

_images/pool-mgr.png

Assign pins to pads in the part editor:

_images/part-editor.png

Easy part creation

Simply add pins as they’re listed in the datasheet:

_images/part-wiz-pads.png

Horizon also ships with script templates for importing industry-standard formats like IBIS saving you the tedious work of typing what’s in the datasheet.

Easy package creation

Get a head start on creating packages by choosing from over 20 IPC-compliant footprint presets:

_images/fp-gen.png

Importing KiCad footprints is supported as well.

Loves beginners and power users alike

Just press the spacebar and get a list of all the actions you can perform. These actions can be bound to customizible single key shortcuts or to vim-like multi key sequences.

_images/spacebar_board.gif

A schematic editor that knows what you’re doing

Schematics aren’t just about lines and labels. Horizon’s schematic editor knows about nets and asks you when merging them:

_images/net_merge.png

It places junctions where they should be:

_images/net.gif

It also reorients texts automatically, so you don’t end up with hard-to-read reference designators:

_images/text-align.png

Buses aren’t foreign to horizon either:

_images/buses.png

Interactive router with online DRC

By using the interactive router originally developed for KiCad, routing tracks becomes a breeze. Of course, it respects your design rules. Routing differential pairs is supported as well.

_images/routing.png

Powerful rules

With powerful and flexible rules, horizon can check and adjust your design to meet its constraints:

_images/rules.png

If something doesn’t meet your rules, horizon exactly tells what’s wrong in which place:

_images/drc.png

Multithreaded DRC makes use of all CPU cores:

_images/drc-mt.png

Interactive length tuning

Interactively measure and tune individual tracks, differential pairs or buses:

_images/length-tuning.png

Stock information

Real-time stock information powered by Kitspace’s partinfo:

_images/partinfo.png

Smart Head-up Display

Instantly know what you’re looking at with direct link to datasheets:

_images/hud.png

Measures pad distance and much more:

_images/hud2.png

Industry-standard fabrication outputs

When your design is ready for fabrication, simply export industry-standard RS-274X gerber and NC-Drill files:

_images/fab-out.png

Mechanical CAD integration

Extend packages into the 3rd dimension by adding a 3D model in industry-standard STEP format:

_images/3d-pkg.png

Look at your board as if you were holding it in your hands to make sure everything fits as intended:

_images/3d.png

When the design is done, export the board and all models as STEP file for use in mechanical CAD:

_images/mcad.png

Painless panelisation

Easily arrange multiple copies of one board or multiple boards on one panel to save money when ordering small PCBs:

_images/panel.png

All boards on a panel are linked to the original design, so they’ll update when the the original design changes.

Versatile input device handling

With Horizon EDA, you can make best use of modern laptop’s pointing devices. Apart from pixel-precision zooming and panning using touchpads or trackpoints, you can directly manipulate 2D and 3D views using touchscreen gestures such as pinch-to-zoom.

Make it yours

Decoration affects people, and people are different – do your own thing or select from the existing color schemes.

_images/colorscheme1.png _images/colorscheme2.png _images/colorscheme3.png _images/colorscheme4.png _images/colorscheme5.png

Keyboard shortcuts are fully customizable as well.

There’s much more

  • OpenGL-accelerated rendering

  • Undo/redo

  • Copy/paste, even between instances

  • Filled planes

  • Arbitrary pad shapes

  • Import DXF Artwork

  • Export a Bill of Materials (BOM)

  • Export pick&place files