Our project design environment

Ingenieurbuero Erckert uses two standard working environments.
1. Working on site or remote via VPN directly on the customers CAD environment.
2. Working local at our own site using out own environment.

The classic environment we are working on at our customers

The Windows side usually is only working in a poor way. This is caused share management and mail storage policies. The UNIX or Linux side at most of our customers is working reliably. Fortunatelly about 80% of our work takes place on the Linux side of the customers's environment.

application	software	other remarks
Windows	operating system	share management usually is not working well
Mail and meetings	outlook	poor control of mail storage
Specifications	DOORs	often suffers from links going to private shares. poor productivity
Linux	operating system	very stable
schematic entry	Cadence virtuoso	license cost is paid by the customer
analog simulation	Cadence spectre, IFX Titan	Spectre has a nice GUI, Titan has more professional scripting
result viewer	Cadence Maestro, IFX Avenue	Maestro looks beautiful, Avenue has better scripting
mixed signal simulation	Cadence config editor, IFS, db.sim	IFS and db.sim are customer specific tools
layout, DRC, LVS	Cadence virtuoso	license cost is paid by the customer
revision management	DesSync	working most of the time. Sometimes requires repair by an admin
ticket system	JIRA	Not as helpful as many people think! Unsolvable tickets remain sitting there until they get deleted instead of fixing the specification

Our own local environment

Working local the tasks that can be done are by far more wide spread. This leads to a much broader list of software used. In our local environment we can exactly chose the tool that exactly fits the requirements while in the customer environment we are often forced to use "jack of all trades" - tools. In addition conceptual work often is done locally using own tools because in the customer's environment many simple but efficient tools are not available - or not permitted for security reasons (for instance C-compilers).
Windows is extinct at Ingenieurbuero Erckert since 1995 for good reason.

application	software	other remarks
Linux	operating system	stable and flexible
WINE	Windows Emulator	Some USB instruments only come with Windows software
Mail, Calendar	Thunderbird	No mail loss using POP instead of IMAP
Specifications, Reports	tech, Lyx	stable even for 1000 pages documents!
small documents, spreadsheets	Libre office	less stable than tech, Lyx
Time schedules	Project Libre	Formats compatible to MS project
concept design	octave, wxMaxima, Jupyter, AI	octave preferred. AI assisted design is very experimental (2025)
schemaic entry	xcircuit, xschem	xschem supports openPDK, xcircuit is more flexible
analog simulation	ngspice, LTspice	sometimes algorithms differ, model compatibility differs.
analog result viewer	gaw, gnuplot	gaw is simpler to use, gnuplot is more powerful
digital simulation	iverilog, ghdl	iverilog preferred
digital result viewer	gtkwave, dinotrace
mixed signal simulation	iverilog	analog blocks modeled using integer numbers
layout	klayout, magic	both support openPDK
board layout	PCB
package models	own semi automatic scripts	written in perl (reg. exp. handling!)
thermal simulation	thermal netlist to SPICE converter	written in perl (reg. exp. handling!)
EMC simulation	fasthenry, wcalc, openEMS, ngspice	tool depends on requirements of the simulation
programming	C, perl, python(3)	C preferred because the compiler catches most errors during compilation
programming	octave, ngspice, gnuplot	these tools can be nicely controlled by scripts.
bench testing	tcpcon + self written software	python+tkinter looks old fashioned, but it is functional!
3D CAD	freecad, cura	used for mech. tools, optical test benches
bench test data processing	gnuplot	can do everything a spread sheet can do, but has no limit for data field sizes

Over all Ingenieurbuero Erckert offers a much wider range of capabilities than it is possible for most of our customers.
Working remote is the most powerful combination of both envirenments taking advantage of the commercial design flow of Cadence and at the same time having access to specialized own tools. This is why working remote or hybrid is the preferred project setup for Ingenieurbuero Erckert.

(Last update Aug. 21 2025)