Tool for drawing timing diagrams

Question

Recently I am working with a hardware design group developing an ASIC. And I am drawing a lot of timing diagrams for which I am using Microsoft Excel, as it is easy to import into Word document. But, things are getting more and more difficult with Excel.

What can be used to draw timing diagrams? Is there any easy tool out there?

Answer 1

I have the same problem and tried the following tools:

• drawtiming
• timing (LaTeX)
• tikz-timing (LaTeX)
• Microsoft Visio

After trying all these I now ended up using Visio and pen&pencil. All other programs lacked support for adding arrows/relationships between signals easily. In Visio, such things are absolutely easy. And you can export the diagrams directly to PowerPoint or even as PDF for using them in LaTeX.

Answer 2

WaveDrom is a free and open source online digital timing diagram rendering engine that uses JavaScript, HTML5 and SVG to convert WaveJSON input text description into SVG vector graphics.

Answer 3

If you like LaTeX and don't mind the extra steps to get the generated image into Word (on which I guess you depend), tikz-timing is very nice. I find it very easy to use and the diagrams look very good!

Apart from that, the companies I worked in so far used Visio for this kind of tasks.

Answer 4

The post Re: Visio Timing Diagram has a link to a Visio stencil.

Answer 5

Timing Designer and Timing Diagrammer are the two main commercial programs. They are similar in functions and user interface. Both have OLE and other export capability.

Answer 6

drawtiming looks interesting.

Answer 7

I find it necessary to add TimingAnalyzer to the mix. It is only in Beta but at least he is actively developing it. ~T

Answer 8

If you are happy with simpler waveforms on a regular grid, you can quickly create something with Timing Font or XWave (linked from the first link). Another option would be Gnome Dia, a simple vector drawing program.

Answer 9

WaveDrom tool, mentioned above, moved to GitHub wavedrom.com.

Answer 10

Some time ago we used IGOR for all kinds of measurement data visualization. But it's not for free, if that's a requirement.

Answer 11

Waveme http://waveme.weebly.com/

I just released a new free GUI-based timing diagram drawing tool for Windows (and Linux/MacOS via Wine).

It draws digital waveforms (signals and buses) with gaps, arrows and labels, and is highly customizable.

I hope you find it useful.

Answer 12

I use an online spreadsheet like Google Docs or Excel for timing diagrams - by making all cells equal width and height and play with the borders of the cell. This is great quick way to explain simple concepts especially during collaborative (online) work.

Answer 13

I've used Timing Designer and Waveformer. They can read basic Verilog files. Waveformer has a decent demo version for Windows. You can't save designs, but you can screen capture them. For very basic timing diagrams, I've used the Visio templates mentioned in other answers.

Answer 14

You can use a "Free Online Digital Diagram Generator" to draw the diagram then copy and past the screen in to your documents. If you want to try a tool that do not need your login or email, and can save your editing for future use. You can try this javascript tool on google. http://hardwarelanguages.blogspot.com/2016/08/free-online-digital-diagram-generator.html

Your digital waveform diagram is saved in the URL encrypted, no one else can see it until your share the links with email/skypee/facebook, and etc.