Best PCB Design Software
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Compare the Top PCB Design Software as of November 2025
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What is PCB Design Software?
PCB design software is software used for designing and laying out circuit boards. It allows users to quickly create and modify electrical components, as well as simulate potential designs. In addition, the software can be used to generate models and images of PCBs that can be shared with colleagues or printed for physical hardware manufacture. PCB design software offers an intuitive graphical user interface which makes it easy to learn even for non-technical users. Some of the features include auto-routers, track editing tools, control over component placement, 3D visualizations, and fabrication output formats. Compare and read user reviews of the best PCB Design software currently available using the table below. This list is updated regularly.
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1
Altium Develop
Altium
Altium Develop is a multidisciplinary product creation platform that breaks down silos and empowers teams to design collaboratively without limits. Built on Altium Designer and Altium 365, it unifies electrical, mechanical, software, sourcing, and manufacturing teams in a shared environment. Every comment, change, and decision is captured in real time, giving collaborators visibility without the need for constant check-ins. The platform enhances project outcomes by aligning requirements, supply chain data, and design context in one ecosystem. Manufacturing engineers and suppliers can provide feedback early, avoiding costly rework and delays. By transforming collaboration into true co-creation, Altium Develop helps organizations innovate faster, smarter, and with greater alignment across disciplines.Starting Price: 995/year/author -
2
OrCAD X
Cadence Design Systems
OrCAD® X is a unified PCB design software platform that offers significant improvements in ease of use, performance, automation, data management, and collaboration. Our cloud-enabled product suite contains applications for schematic, simulation, and PCB layout. OrCAD X Capture is one of the most widely used schematic design solutions for the creation and documentation of electrical circuits. PSpice® is our virtual SPICE simulation environment integrated within Capture that allows you to prototype your designs using the industry-leading, native analog, mixed-signal, and advanced analysis engines to deliver a complete circuit simulation and verification solution. Our two PCB layout environments, OrCAD X PCB Editor and OrCAD X Presto, allow designers to easily collaborate between ECAD/MCAD teams and build better PCBs faster. OrCAD X Presto is a new user-friendly option offering a simpler interface for quick-turn PCB design.Starting Price: $107 USD/month -
3
BQR
BQR Reliability Engineering
𝗔𝗜-𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗱, 𝗕𝗤𝗥’𝘀 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗲𝗻𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘁𝘀. 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝘂𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝟱 𝗮𝗱𝘃𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗰 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘀𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗼𝗼𝗹𝘀: 𝗦𝘆𝗻𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗹𝘆𝘇𝗲𝗿𝗧𝗠: streamlines PCB design with de-rating & MTBF prediction. 𝗖𝗶𝗿𝗰𝘂𝗶𝘁𝗛𝗮𝘄𝗸𝗧𝗠: verifies multi-PCB systems for errors & overstress. 𝗳𝗶𝗫𝘁𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀®: predicts component lifespan with de-rating, thermal & stress analysis. 𝗖𝗔𝗥𝗘®: assesses reliability, availability, maintainability & safety. 𝗮𝗽𝗺𝗢𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗿®: optimizes maintenance & logistics. -
4
DipTrace
DipTrace
PCB Layout is a high-level engineering tool for board design featuring smart manual routing of high-speed and differential signals, shape-based autorouter, advanced verification, and wide import/export capabilities. Design requirements are defined by net classes, class-to-class rules, and detailed settings by object types for each class or layer. DipTrace features design process with real-time DRC, which reports errors on the fly before actually making them. The board can be previewed in 3D and exported for mechanical CAD modeling. Design rule check with in-depth detailing, net connectivity verification, and comparing to source schematic ensure maximum quality of the final product. DipTrace is a single environment with direct circuit-to-board converting, updating from schematic, and back annotation. Nets are divided to net classes with custom settings and class-to-class rules. Through and blind/buried vias are organized to via styles.Starting Price: $75 per license -
5
EasyEDA
EasyEDA
More than 1 million real-time updated components have been created, letting you focus on the design, and you can create or import your own common libraries. Benefit from China’s leading electronic components distributor - LCSC , EasyEDA supports direct links to more than 200,000 real-time, in-stock components at LCSC . Designers can refer to stocks, prices, and order at any time during design. It has the same features as the online version, and has more design areas, we have made a lot of improvements, recommended. Easy to use. If you have used other PCB tools then you can use it even more quickly. Light weight, less resource hungry, smoother experience, speed up your design. No activation, just register and login to use, no licensing required. Local backup automatically with document recovery at any time. Your files will also be saved on the cloud server, giving you double backup for you data security.Starting Price: $4.9 per month -
6
PCB123
Sunstone Circuits
PCB123 is a full-feature design tool for Printed Circuit Board designers of all levels. Introduced as a free tool in 2002, PCB123 still operates on a risk-sharing business model: We don't get paid until you succeed at designing your PCB. And to help ensure your success, we staff our technical support department with professionals that can answer your questions. So what's to stop you? Easy-to-use, and professional-grade PCB CAD software that's free and fully supported. We don’t throttle our tool and charge you for a license to give you full functionality. We get paid when you order boards – it really is that simple. software developer’s kit, with programmatic access to the PCB123 database, you can expand the tool for your own purposes. Our PCB layout specialists are available to help you stretch your resource dollars & speed your PCB prototyping cycle. Submit basic design information to get a quote.Starting Price: $0 -
7
CircuitStudio
Altium
Quickly design advanced board layouts with interactive routing and the intelligent Situs™ Autorouting technology. Effortlessly collaborate with your mechanical design team with Native 3D™ PCB editing and STEP MCAD support. Accurately simulate and ship advanced electronics with integrated XSPICE analog & digital simulation. Quickly transform your ideas into reality with hierarchical schematic capturing and constraint-driven PCB layout technology. Instantly begin work on your next design project with an easy-to-use interface and customizable workflow. Take advantage of your complete design history with Altium designer and EAGLE compatibility. Never miss another deadline with real-time component pricing and availability data from hundreds of suppliers. Quickly create custom parts in a snap with included parametrics and datasheets from the Circuitstudio content library.Starting Price: $495 per license -
8
Pad2Pad
Pad2Pad
Don’t complicate things by using multiple vendors to get finished boards. Pad2Pad will manufacture and assemble PCB’s for you or your business. Design, price and order your PCB’s using our free PCB design software or get an instant quote and upload your gerber file(s) to place your order. Whether for a personal project or commercial application, Pad2Pad is the comprehensive solution for design, manufacturing, and assembly of custom circuit boards. Whether you are an inventor needing a single bare PCB or a business seeking 100,000 assembled boards, Pad2Pad will smoothly move your design from layout to final product. Circuit testing and high-quality production standards are pillars of the PCB manufacturing industry. -
9
KiCad EDA
KiCad EDA
With the schematic editor you can create your design without limit, there are no paywalls to unlock features. An official library for schematic symbols and a built-in schematic symbol editor help you get started quickly with your designs. Make professional PCB layouts with up to 32 copper layers. KiCad now has a push and shove router which is capable of routing differential pairs and interactively tuning trace lengths. KiCad includes a 3D viewer which you can use to inspect your design in an interactive canvas. You can rotate and pan around to inspect details that are difficult to inspect on a 2D view. Multiple rendering options allow you to modify the aesthetic appearance of the board or to hide and show features for easier inspection. KiCad’s schematic capture is efficient, with all the tools you can expect for such a task. The interface focuses on productivity. There are no complexity limits, as large designs can be divided into hierarchical subsheets. -
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Allegro X Design Platform
Cadence Design Systems
The Cadence Allegro X Design Platform is the ultimate solution for navigating modern electronic complexities that help support your diverse PCB design needs. As a full-stack engineering platform, it provides a scalable and highly integrated environment for multi-board electronic system design. Allegro X ensures that your global teams can effectively and concurrently collaborate to minimize project risks, lower production costs, and ensure design compliance and standards are met. Electrical engineers and PCB designers can make data-driven decisions with access to constraints and integrated analysis workflows reducing turnaround time while ensuring product reliability, manufacturing, and first pass success.Starting Price: Available Upon Request -
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Cadison E&I Designer
Neilsoft
CADISON E&I Designer is a brainchild of unparalleled engineering experience and technological expertise of Electrical Engineers & Developers based on Object Oriented Technology. It has been developed with a mission of improving the electrical engineering efficiency and focusing more on project lifecycle challenges like change management, centralized documentation process, real-time updates, and true unification of information & data with graphics. Scalability and customization are two important pillars of CADISON E&I Designer with which its adoption to your business model and system becomes easy and effortless. Our mission is the accomplishment of accuracy, speed and in-time project completion for our Users. How CADISON Team has something different to Offer. -
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Autodesk EAGLE
Autodesk
EAGLE is electronic design automation (EDA) software that lets printed circuit board (PCB) designers seamlessly connect schematic diagrams, component placement, PCB routing, and comprehensive library content. Bring your design to life with a wide range of PCB layout tools in EAGLE. Drag and drop reusable design blocks between your projects, complete with synchronized schematic and PCB circuitry. Validate your schematic design with a complete set of electronic rule checks, so your schematic can stay on track. All changes stay automatically in sync between your schematic and layout, so you can focus on the creative process. Control your design flow and avoid unexpected surprises with fully customizable PCB design rules and constraints. Worry-free libraries are ready for your next design. Find and place parts dynamically linked to our growing catalog.Starting Price: $60 per month -
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SOLIDWORKS PCB
SOLIDWORKS
SOLIDWORKS PCB enables the productivity you need to design Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) quickly along with unique, collaboration between electrical and 3D mechanical design teams. It offers a clear advantage where ECAD-MCAD collaboration is critical for overall success of electronic product design. Define rigid-flex regions, layers, and stack thicknesses enabling single board rigid-flex PCB design. The rigid-flex layer stack regions can be defined with bend lines and angles and validated with 3D folding and component clearance checking to ensure layout correctness. Manage project, design files and documentation with SOLIDWORKS PCB-PDM Connector and the SOLIDWORKS PDM-based design and data management workflow. Securely store and index design data for fast retrieval, eliminate concerns over version control and data loss, and collaborate on design data from multiple locations. Unmatched ECAD-MCAD integration and collaboration with SOLIDWORKS that unifies design data. -
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PCB Artist
Advanced Circuits
Professional-grade online PCB design software with free live technical support. PCB artist includes features such as multi-page schematics and Netlist import. Advanced circuits' online PCB design software is not only easy to use, it is absolutely the best free PCB layout software available! Our customers tell us one of the reasons they love doing business with us is because of our PCB design software. When it comes to designing printed circuit boards, we help you get it done right, and that saves you time and money down the line. -
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Ansys Exalto
Ansys
Ansys Exalto is a post-LVS RLCk extraction software solution that enables IC designers to accurately capture unknown crosstalk among different blocks in the design hierarchy by extracting lumped-element parasitics and generating an accurate model for electrical, magnetic and substrate coupling. Exalto interfaces with most LVS tools and can complement the RC extraction tool of your choice. Ansys Exalto post-LVS RLCk extraction lets IC designers accurately predict electromagnetic and substrate coupling effects for signoff on circuits that were previously "too big to analyze.” The extracted models are back-annotated to the schematic or netlist, and support all circuit simulators. The proliferation of RF and high-speed circuits in modern silicon systems has raised electromagnetic coupling to a first order effect that must be accurately modeled to reliably achieve silicon success. -
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PDN Analyzer
Altium
Altium’s PDN Analyzer tool integrates directly with Altium Designer so you can easily troubleshoot and detect issues like insufficient or excessive copper, uncontrolled voltage drops, marginal voltage at critical power pins, copper islands or peninsulas and similar issues that may be present with the power system in your PCB design. PDN refers to the power system on printed circuit boards for active circuits. This system includes all interconnections from the voltage regulator module and the metallization of pads and die on integrated circuits that are used to supply and return power current. IC supply voltage limits must be met across the entire length of the power delivery network. Accurately validating your power budget means considering minimum and maximum device limits, worst-case voltage drops, and combined return-path currents. PDN Analyzer shows you exactly where these problems arise.Starting Price: $163 per month -
17
Flux
Flux
Build hardware more efficiently with real-time collaboration, an easy-to-use simulator, and forkable community content. Leverage collective intelligence through modern sharing, permissions, and an easy-to-use version control system. We believe in the power of open-source. Get started quickly with an ever-expanding library of parts and schematics created by the Flux community. Finally, a programmable simulator that doesn’t require a PHD to use. Check your schematic before you build, all from the browser. Whether you're building a simple circuit board or designing hardware for the next Mars mission, Flux is where great hardware projects are born. Flux is a browser-based end-to-end electronic design tool that breaks down barriers. Flux is making something new, and we’re doing in a new way. It’s called building in the open. Join our community of engineers, makers, and entrepreneurs who are passionate about improving hardware design tools.Starting Price: $7 per user per month -
18
FloWare
FlowCAD
FloWare is a bunch of useful tool enhancements which increase productivity in CAD Flow and PCB Design with OrCAD and Allegro. These enhancements have been created to meet the specific needs of customers in the fields of Setup, Display, Edit, Draft, Shapes, Check/Review, Documentation, etc. Installation of FloWare modules is a simple process and does not require any expert knowledge. Installation process includes a wizard and guides you through the FloWare installation process. Menu structures are automatically recognized by PCB Editor and shown in the tool bar. Simply choose from the available modules according to your needs and increase PCB design productivity. The license is distributed by e-mail and is valid for the site of your company location. Each module provides a detailed documentation. -
19
CR-8000 Design Force
ZUKEN
Break down the boundaries of your electrical design process with Design Force, a true innovation in system-level IC package and PCB design and analysis. As the process for designing a complete product continues to increase in complexity, it often includes technologies that have become difficult and sometimes impossible for most ECAD tools to manage and address. Design Force provides the ability for design teams to take system-level design information from as early as the conceptual and planning phase and layout each board in the product, simultaneously considering the entire system view. Design Force fully leverages the latest industry hardware and software capabilities, allowing users to design in a native 3D environment, obtaining optimal performance by utilizing native 64-bit, multi-threading, multi-core processors. Design Force supports multiple client-server implementations and includes the ability to work from your corporate cloud. -
20
Ansys HFSS
Ansys
Multipurpose, full wave 3D electromagnetic (EM) simulation software for designing and simulating high-frequency electronic products such as antennas, components, interconnects, connectors, ICs and PCBs. Ansys HFSS is a 3D electromagnetic (EM) simulation software for designing and simulating high-frequency electronic products such as antennas, antenna arrays, RF or microwave components, high-speed interconnects, filters, connectors, IC packages and printed circuit boards. Engineers worldwide use Ansys HFSS software to design high-frequency, high-speed electronics found in communications systems, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), satellites, and internet-of-things (IoT) products. HFSS’s unmatched capacity, coupled with indisputable accuracy, enables engineers to address RF, microwave, IC, PCB and EMI problems for most complex systems. The Ansys HFSS simulation suite consists of a comprehensive set of solvers to address diverse electromagnetic problems. -
21
Ansys PathFinder
Ansys
Ansys PathFinder-SC is a high-capacity solution to help you plan, verify and sign-off IP and full-chip SoC designs for integrity and robustness against electrostatic discharge (ESD). Ansys PathFinder-SC identifies and isolates the root causes of design issues that can cause chip failure from charged-device model (CDM), human body model (HBM), or other ESD events. It’s high-capacity, cloud-native architecture can enlist thousands of compute cores for fast full-chip turnaround. PathFinder-SC is certified by major foundries for current density checks and ESD sign-off. PathFinder-SC’s integrated data modeling, extraction and transient simulation engine is an end-to end solution for ESD verification. The single-pass use model reads industry-standard design formats, sets up ESD rules, extracts the RCs for the power network, and performs ESD simulations to analyze root causes and provide fix and optimization feedback, all within a single tool. -
22
CAM350
CAM350
CAM350® is the industry de facto standard for verification, optimization and output generation to efficiently and effectively drive PCB fabrication and part of the truly integrated manufacturing data preparation solution from DownStream Technologies. Today’s complex PCB designs require comprehensive verification before they are transferred to the PCB fabricator to ensure a successful and timely manufacture of bare boards. Problems arising during PCB fabrication can drastically impact product schedules, result in costly design re-spins, and require modifications to the design that might compromise the design’s integrity and intent. Inspecting, preparing and validating the PCB design prior to release to manufacturing will result in a significant increase in efficiency, less risk of design re-spin, and, most importantly, successful electronic products, built faster, at less cost. -
23
Ansys Path FX
Ansys
Ansys Path FX allows you to calculate timing with variation on a full SoC, without taking any shortcuts. Its unique cell modeling delivers SPICE accuracy timing for any voltage or variation condition with a single library. Path FX has a fully threaded and distributed architecture, with the ability to scale to thousands of CPUs. Ansys Path FX’s path-based timing analysis has the technology to account for all critical contributors to delay and constraints across multiple process, voltage, temperature corners and scenarios. It can also automatically identify and simulate every clock path in your design. Two of the biggest challenges facing successful chip design today are limiting the power consumption through lower supply voltages and managing the complexity of advanced silicon processes at 7nm and below. -
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Ansys Pharos
Ansys
Pharos combines Ansys' unparalleled EM engine capacity with a proprietary high-capacity circuit simulation engine to perform coupling analysis and provide ranking of potential EM crosstalk aggressors per victim node. By highlighting the most susceptible nets, designers can focus their design decisions to manage EM crosstalk on these nets and de-risk the design process. Pharos combines unparalleled extraction engine capacity with a built-in simulation engine to perform EM analysis and provide ranking of potential EM crosstalk aggressors per victim net. This allows designers to focus on the most critical nets in the design. Increasing design complexity, along with the broad scope of magnetic field interference, makes identifying all EM crosstalk susceptible victim/aggressor net pairs a very challenging, if not impossible, task. -
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Ansys PowerArtist
Ansys
Ansys PowerArtist is the comprehensive RTL design-for-power platform of choice of leading low-power semiconductor companies for early power analysis and reduction. PowerArtist includes physically-aware RTL power accuracy, interactive power debug, analysis-driven power reduction, unique metrics for tracking power efficiency and vector coverage, rapid power profiling of real workloads, and seamless enablement of RTL-to-physical power grid integrity. PowerArtist’s unique physically-aware modeling delivers predictable RTL power accuracy with fast turnaround enabling leading semiconductor companies to make early decisions reliably. Analyzing power after synthesis is too late. Design teams rely on PowerArtist to slice and dice power, identify power-inefficient RTL code and every wasted toggle in the design, and rapidly profile millions of cycles. -
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Ansys RaptorH
Ansys
Ansys RaptorH is an electromagnetic modeling software with capacity to model power grids, full custom blocks, spiral inductors, and clock trees. Its high-speed distributed processing delivers accurate, silicon-proven S-parameter and RLCk models. RaptorH can analyze partial and unfinished layouts during the design phase and makes it easy to use either the general purpose HFSS engine or the silicon-optimized RaptorX engine for silicon structures. Ansys RaptorH extracts electromagnetic models at the pre-LVS stage for arbitrary routing and layout, including planes (solid or perforated), round shapes, spiral inductors, and MiM/MoM capacitors - with automatic setting of boundary conditions. The GUI allows point-and-click net selection and what-if analyses. RaptorH is supported by all major silicon foundries and can read encrypted technology files to set up analyses with either the HFSS or the Raptor engine. -
27
Ansys RedHawk-SC
Ansys
Ansys RedHawk-SC is the industry’s trusted gold standard voltage drop and electromigration multiphysics sign-off solution for digital designs. Its powerful analytics quickly identify any weaknesses and allow what-if explorations to optimize power and performance. Redhawk-SC’s cloud-based architecture gives it the speed and capacity to handle full-chip analysis. Signoff accuracy is certified by all major foundries for all finFET nodes, down to 3nm. Ansys RedHawk-SC enables robust, low-power digital designs without performance loss thanks to advanced power analytics that give designers comprehensive techniques to detect and correct dynamic voltage drop. Ansys RedHawk-SC’s trusted multiphysics signoff analysis is a powerful way to reduce project and technology risk. RedHawk’s algorithms are certified accurate by all major foundries for all finFET processes and are proven in thousands of tapeouts. -
28
Ansys VeloceRF
Ansys
Ansys VeloceRF shortens the design cycle by greatly reducing the time it takes to synthesize and model complex spiral devices and T-lines. It takes only a few seconds to compile an inductor or transformer geometry, and just a couple of minutes to model and analyze it. It integrates with leading EDA platforms, instantiating ready-to-tape-out layouts. Ansys VeloceRF allows you to synthesize devices with tight packing of multiple devices and lines for an optimized silicon floorplan. Analysis of the coupling among any number of inductive devices before detailed layout will reduce design size and reduce or eliminate guard rings. Inductor size as well as inductor-to-inductor crosstalk can impact the die size. Ansys VeloceRF helps you design smaller devices through the use of optimization criteria and geometry constraints. In addition, it calculates coupling among any number of inductors to better optimize silicon real estate and to optimize inductors in circuit context. -
29
Multisim
NI
Multisim ™ software integrates industry standard spice simulation with an interactive schematic environment to instantly visualize and analyze the behavior of electronic circuits. Its intuitive interface helps teachers reinforce circuit theory and improve theory retention throughout the engineering curriculum. By adding powerful circuit simulation and analysis to the design flow, Multisim ™ helps researchers and designers reduce iterations of printed circuit board (PCB) prototypes and save development costs. Multisim ™ for Education is circuit teaching application software for analog, digital and power electronics courses and labs. Multisim ™ provides engineers with the SPICE simulation, analysis and PCB design tools to rapidly iterate on designs and improve prototype performance. -
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Aptean Cimnet ERP
Aptean
Aptean Cimnet ERP is designed specifically to empower printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturers to streamline and automate processes, reducing costs and improving bottom-line results. PCB manufacturing and engineering processes require specialized functionality that you just can’t find in a generic ERP. That’s why, Cimnet delivers targeted engineering and manufacturing capabilities that are designed around the unique workflow and challenges of the PCB industry. These industry-specific features are integrated with a full suite of business management tools that drive efficiency and visibility across your quoting, inventory management, production, financial, and supply chain processes. Cimnet also integrates seamlessly with other common PCB applications, including CAM (computer-aided manufacturing) and pre-CAM products. Agility and responsiveness to customer demand are critical to your success in today’s increasingly competitive market.