Logisim-evolution — The Complete Guide: Free Design and Simulation of Digital Logic Circuits
Logisim-evolution is the maintained continuation of classic Logisim, open source under GPLv3, and widely used in digital systems and computer architecture courses. You build a circuit on screen, click the inputs and watch the signals propagate.
Logisim-evolution
Logisim-evolution Team
Design and simulate digital logic circuits interactively.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- Ready components — gates, multiplexers, counters, registers, RAM and ROM.
- Subcircuits — hierarchical design, up to a whole CPU.
- Live simulation — clock, single-stepping and a timing diagram.
- Combinational analysis — from a truth table to a minimal expression and a circuit.
- FPGA — VHDL export and download to supported development boards.
Uses
Digital logic exercises, designing state machines, building a simple processor in a semester project and classroom demonstrations. For analogue circuits you need a different simulator, such as ngspice.
Related tools
For another simple logic simulator — Digital. For circuit simulation in the browser — Falstad. For Verilog simulation — Icarus Verilog.
Digital — logic simulator
Helmut Neemann
Build a logic circuit and watch it run — with export to VHDL and Verilog.
Get it from the vendor
Falstad Circuit Simulator
Paul Falstad
An interactive circuit simulator that runs in the browser, with animated current.
Get it from the vendor
Icarus Verilog
Stephen Williams
A Verilog compiler and simulator for digital design work.
Get it from the vendor
GHDL — VHDL Simulator
GHDL Project
Open-source VHDL compiler and simulator for verifying hardware descriptions before synthesis.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
Logisim-evolution is the easiest way to understand how a computer works inside — free and open.