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WHY XSCHEM?

Have been a Cadence Virtuoso user for many years, in different companies.

• Long startup time
• Creating new components way too complicated (you need a CDF, ask your CAD support and file a ticket).
• Memory Hog, keeps growing until all Virtual memory exhausted, then crash.
• One process handles all design windows. Process crashes, all work on all windows lost.
• Netlist extraction and many other functions are slow since all is implemented in skill language.
• Proprietary file format.

Most Open source schematic editors are not for VLSI

• Gschem (or its fork, lepton-schematic) and Kicad's eeschema, can not handle complex VLSI designs.
• Xcircuit is one of the very few Open Source tools i found that is good for VLSI design. Has very accurate graphics rendering, allows arbitrary rotations, uses postscript as schematic save format. This makes scripted generation of schematic files a bit complex. Certainly one of the best tools from graphic quality standpoint.