Proteus Basic Schematic Entry
Proteus Basic Schematic Entry
Proteus Basic Schematic Entry
SCHEMATIC ENTRY
Basic Schematic Entry
We’ll start the tutorial by familiarizing ourselves with the basics of schematic design; picking components from the libraries, placing them on the
schematic and wiring them together.
The design in question is relatively large and there is therefore a reasonable amount of drawing involved. We provide a completed schematic at the end
of this section so, if you feel that you have mastered the basics at any point, there is no need to continue with drawing the remainder of the circuitry. We
do however urge you to read through the full contents of the documentation as we introduce important features throughout.
The first thing we need to do is to get the parts from the libraries that we need in our schematic.
Selecting Parts from the Library
You can select parts from the library in one of two ways :
Click on the P button at the top left of the Object Selector as shown below. You can also use the Browse Library icon on the keyboard shortcut for
this command (by default this is the P key on the keyboard).
Right click the mouse on an empty area of the schematic and select Place – Component - From Libraries from the resulting context menu as shown
below :
Either of these two methods will cause the Device Library Browser dialogue form to appear.
For reference, the following is a list of all the components we will need for our design:
There are several ways in which we can find and import components from the libraries into the schematic. In the case of parts where you would know
the part name its usually best to start the search with that. Try entering ’2N7002’ into the Keywords field on the Device Library Browser dialogue form.
This gives three components to choose from and we can then simply double click on the part in the results list to import it into the schematic. When you
do this you should notice that the part now populates the Object Selector as in the following screenshot.
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You can customize the information displayed in the Library Browser’s results list by right clicking the mouse on the results list. The context menu
provides you with options to display Categories, Sub-Categories, Manufacturer and Library alongside each result.
It may be that we simply want to browse for a specific type of part and/or one available from a specific manufacturer. To take an example, clear out the
contents of the keyword field and then select the Capacitors Category. In our design we are looking for some Nickel Barrier caps from AVX so we can
further filter the results set by selecting Nickel Barrier from the sub-category field and AVX from the Manufacturer field. There are still a large number of
caps available so we might type in ‘22p’, ‘1N’, etc. in the keywords field to isolate and select the particular components we require (AVX0805NPO22P,
AVX0805X7R1N and so on).
Whilst this exercise is a little contrived given that we are starting from a preset list of parts, the techniques described are flexible enough to allow you to
locate any library part quickly. Work through the full parts list for the design (as provided above) now using one or more of these methods to find and
select the parts into your design. When you are finished you should have all of the required components in the Object Selector as shown in the following
screenshot.
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It is inevitable that at some point there will be parts needed for a project which aren't supplied in the installed libraries. In such cases you can
quickly download and import the parts free of charge from popular third party vendors such as Ultra-Librarian, SnapEDA, Library Loader or PCB
Library Expert. The process is discussed in detail in the reference manual and also covered in video format on the website and our Youtube
channel.
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Move the mouse to the desired location for the part, then left click the mouse again to ‘drop’ the part and commit placement.
Often we need to move parts or blocks of circuitry after placement and now is a good time to cover the different ways in which we can do that. The
procedure for this should be familiar to most users; we need to select the object(s) we want to move, left depress the mouse, drag to the new location
and finally release the mouse to drop.
We can select an object in several ways as detailed below:
Choose the Selection Icon and then left click on the object. This is a standard technique found in most graphical applications and will tag any object.
Bear in mind when using this technique that you must change back to component mode for example, when you wish to perform other actions such
as placing components etc.
Right clicking the mouse on an object will both tag the object and present a context menu containing available actions on that object.
Draw a tagbox around the object by depressing the left mouse button and dragging the mouse to form a box encompassing the object to be
selected. This method will work for any object (or indeed sets of objects). Sizing handles are provided to allow you to resize the tagbox in the event
that it does not fully enclose the object. This is the technique that should be used for moving multiple, connected objects or blocks of circuitry.
We’ll get plenty of practice moving things around as we lay out the schematic; for now just use one of these techniques to move the memory device
down towards the bottom left of the Editing Window in roughly the same position as in the screenshot at the top of the section.
Having placed the memory device, we now need to get the peripheral circuitry down and oriented correctly. We are going to need two 10k pull up
resistors and two 100 Ohm resistors for the data and clock lines. Additionally, we are going to need to use terminals to achieve connectivity with power,
ground and other sections of circuitry. Begin by selecting the CHIPRES10k device and click left once on the anti-clockwise Rotation icon (shown below);
note that the preview of the resistor in the Overview Window shows it rotated through 90°.
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Next, select CHIPRES100R, rotate appropriately (see above) and place two to the left of the memory device in line with the SCK and SDA pins.
You can also rotate parts 'live' when in placement mode. Left click the mouse once to enter placement mode (at this point you will see the
component outline following the mouse) and then use the '+' and '-' keys on the numeric keypad to rotate the component as you are placing it. Left
click again to commit the placement in the normal way.
We use terminals in schematic design simply to terminate a wire and assign a connection. Often this connection is to either power or ground but it can
just as easily be to another wire elsewhere on the circuit. Terminals allow us both to vastly reduce actual wiring (avoiding spaghetti schematics) and to
make connections between different sheets on the schematic. To place terminals, start by selecting the terminal mode; this will switch the Object
Selector and provide us with a listing of the available terminal types.
We need a power terminal, ground terminal and also two default terminals for the connections on the I2C bus. From this stage, placement and
orientation are identical to any other object and should now be quite familiar. Place the appropriate terminals in their approximate locations now, such
that the area around the memory device now looks something like the following
Similarly, you can clear a selection (or group of selections) either by left clicking in empty space or by right clicking in empty space and choosing the
Clear Selection option from the resulting context menu
Dragging components
Remember that you can rotate while moving by using the '+' and '-' keys on the numeric keypad.
Wiring Up
Having placed all the requisite components we now need to wire them together. There are three main techniques used to help make wiring a circuit as
simple and quick as possible :
Modeless Wiring
There is no 'wiring mode' in the schematic editor - wires can be placed and edited at any time, without the hassle of entering a dedicated wiring mode
prior to placement. This means less mouse travel, less mode switching and quicker development.
Follow-Me Wire Autorouting
After starting to place a wire, the proposed route of the wire will follow the movement of the mouse orthogonally to the termination point of the wire.
Live Cursor Display
The cursor will change as a visual indicator when wiring to show when a wire can be placed, when a wire can be terminated and when a wire is being
placed.
The basic procedure for placing a wire between two pins is given below, using the connection between the SCK pin of the memory device and the
100Ohm resistor as an example:
Move the mouse over the SCK pin on the memory device - the cursor will change to a green pen.
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Left click the mouse and then move it to the left until it is over the pin of the 100 Ohm resistor. The wire will follow the mouse and the cursor / pen is
white during wiring
Left click the mouse again to commit the connection and place the wire.
The procedure for wiring onto an existing wire is almost identical but there are a couple of items to note:
You cannot directly start a connection from an arbitrary point on a wire; in our example you want to start the connections from the pin and terminate
them on the wire.
When you terminate the connection on another wire a junction dot will be placed automatically to complete the connection.
If, during a design, you want to make a wire-to-wire connection you must first place a junction dot on the wire and then wire from the junction dot to
the other wire
If you want to adjust a wire after placement (for example, the wire from the SDA pin to the resistor) then simply right click on the segment you want to
move and then either select the ‘Drag Wire’ context menu option or simply depress the left mouse button and drag to the new location.
Dragging a wire
Armed with the above you should now be able to connect up all of the circuitry, so that your schematic now looks something like the following
Remember, Proteus provides visual indicators to help you. If the cursor turns green you can start/stop wire placement.
See Also:
Wiring Up (Reference Manual)
Connectivity by Touch
The following basic rules of thumb may be helpful:
If you are placing the component you can attach to another component, wire or terminal directly.
If you are dragging the component you can attach to another component pin, junction dot or terminal.
If you are copy and pasting you can only attach it to a pin end, a bus pin, a junction dot or a terminal only.
Further information can be found here: Connectivity by Touch (Reference manual)
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The final thing we need to do to complete this block of circuitry is label the terminals. Terminal naming is extremely important as it denotes the
connection to be made. We could name the terminals in any fashion we liked but sensible names make the schematic more legible and easy to
understand.
Terminal connection
Power, Ground and NC terminals are the exception to this rule, although there is no reason not to label them; an unlabelled power terminal is
assigned to the VCC net and an unnamed ground terminal will be assigned to net GND. A pin connected to the NC terminal is NC and cannot then
be connected on the layout.
Essentially what we are doing by labeling a terminal is making a connection to somewhere else on the schematic (a terminal with the same name)
without placing a physical wire between the two objects.
As discussed previously the Proteus schematic is flexible enough to present you with several methods for editing parts - choose your preferred method
for editing the terminal from the following:
Double left click on the terminal.
Right click on the terminal to select it and launch the context menu and then use the Edit Properties menu option.
Enter Selection Mode, left click to highlight the terminal, then right click to launch it's context menu and use the Edit Properties menu option.
Remember to exit selection mode when you are finished.
Having now launched the terminals dialogue form, type in VDD in the edit field as shown below and hit ok to exit the dialogue form
Note that, where appropriate you should always prefix numerical terminal values with a '+' or '-'. For example, a terminal labeled 12V is ambiguous
and you should therefore ensure it is labeled +12V or –12V
Finish the job now by editing the other terminals and labeling them appropriately such that your completed circuit block now looks like the following:
If you need all pins to be visible on the schematic (e.g. for auditing purposes) consider using the library import tool (Library Menu -> Import Part) to
bring in the parts you need. This process is quick and easy and works with library parts supplied from all major vendors.
See Also:
Hidden Power Pins (Reference Manual)
Power Rail Configuration
The easiest way to manage power nets and connectivity is through the Power Rail Configuration dialogue form, which is invoked from the Design Menu.
If we do this now we can see that we have three pre-defined power supplies, namely GND, VCC/VDD and VEE. Changing the combo box at the top we
should also see that the GND net is connected to the GND supply and that both the VCC and the VDD nets are connected to the VCC/VDD supply. It’s
worth examining how this happened more closely:
The GND net is created by connections to an unlabelled ground terminal.
The VDD net is created by connections to the power terminal labeled VDD.
The I2C memory has two hidden power pins, VCC and GND, which are assigned to nets bearing their names.
Managing power nets and power supplies is a very important concept so we’ll experiment a little to re-inforce the point. Exit the Power Rail Configuration
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dialogue form, right click on the I2C memory part and select Edit Properties from the resulting dialogue form. Next, click on the Hidden Pins button at the
right hand side to view the hidden pins and their net assignments.
If we had simply removed the label from the power terminal (instead of renaming it), it would have been designated to the VCC net and again
everything would be done for us.
A final point worth noting is that new power supplies are created automatically when you label a terminal with a voltage. For example, labeling a power
terminal +12V would create a +12V supply and assign the +12V net to the supply automatically. This means again that no action is required by the user.
In general usage therefore, the software will handle the assignments of power nets to power supplies and will create new supplies automatically.
However, if you need more flexibility (for example, an analogue ground and a digital ground) then using terminal labels and the Power Rail Configuration
dialogue gives you the control you need. Please see the reference manual for more information if required.
Let’s change our terminal label back to VDD for consistency before we move on.
See Also:
Power Rail Configuration (Reference Manual).
Global Power Nets
Power nets and connections are always global on a given sheet on the schematic. By default, they are also global to the design. However, if you do
have a multi-sheet design and you want separate power supplies on different sheets you can isolate the supplies by un-checking the Global Power Nets
box (Design Menu - Edit Design Properties dialogue form). This means that you need to explicitly wire through the sheets on the design but not within a
given sheet. It is typically used only for the most complex of designs and is not relevant for the purposes of this tutorial.
Part Labels and Annotation
You should see that all the parts you have placed have both a unique reference and a value. A unique and sequential annotation is assigned to
components as you place them on the schematic, although you can re-annotate manually if you need to.
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You have full control over the position and visibility of part labels – you can change the values, move the position or hide information that you feel is
unnecessary. The discussion below details how to manipulate part labels on a per component basis.
If you zoom in on any resistor you have placed you will see that Proteus has labelled it with a unique Reference (e.g ‘R1) and also with a Value (e.g.
‘10k’). You can edit both these fields and their visibility via the Edit Component dialogue form. Launch this dialogue form now by double clicking the left
mouse button over the resistor (or using one of the alternative methods discussed previously).
Dragging a reference
Timesaving Techniques & Block Editing
Armed with all of the basic techniques we can now look at the other blocks of circuitry on the front sheet of the design, practice what we have covered so
far and introduce a couple of new timesaving techniques. Let’s start by drawing the dsPIC33 block as shown below:
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Begin by placing and wiring the oscillator and power sections (left hand side) of this circuitry using the methods outlined in the previous sections. When
you are ready we’ll look at the right hand side, where we can use a couple of additional features to speed up the process.
The schematic editor provides a very useful feature to help with wiring when we are laying out a series of topologically identical wires. Essentially, it
allows us to auto-repeat the last wire placed to form a new connection.
Start by rotating and placing a couple of the terminals to the right of the processor.
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Note that this technique works by placing an identical wire to the one placed directly beforehand. It follows that the destination must be exactly the
same distance away (i.e. aligned) and that you must perform the operations consecutively
We can now complete this section of circuitry, placing and wiring up the remaining components and labeling the terminals as per the screenshot at the
top of the section. Note that a list of existing terminal label names is available as a drop down list from the Edit Terminal dialogue form (refer to the
section on labeling terminals if you need a reminder).
If you feel comfortable with the topics we have covered to date, you can skip some of the drawing and load a pre-supplied completed schematic
later in the tutorial
As a final point it is worth re-emphazing that you can re-arrange or move blocks of objects at any time by tagging a box around them and dragging them
to the desired location.
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