Silicon is a library for drawing circuit schematics using CircuiTiKZ in Python. It is designed to be easy to use and to provide a simple interface for creating circuit diagrams. CircuiTiKZ is a powerful TiKZ-based LaTeX package that allows you to draw circuit diagrams in documents. Silicon provides a Python interface to CircuiTiKZ, allowing you to create diagrams using Python code. Diagrams generated by Silicon can be used directly in LaTeX documents, as well as exported to image files.

CircuiTiKZ is currently in an early development stage and only a few basic arbitrarily chosen electronic components are available. There may also be bugs and issues, as well as some poorly implemented features. Some of the existing features may also get removed or changed in terms of usage or produced results in the future.

• Python 3.12+ with the following packages:
  • tempfile
  • Pillow
  • matplotlib - optional, if you want to render schematics in a pyplot view
• LaTeX distribution with pdflatex command-line interface and the following packages:
  • circuitikz
  • inputenc
  • fontenc
  • amssymb
  • bbold
  • textgreek
  • geometry
• The convert command-line utility from the ImageMagick package, required for exporting images

Silicon is not featured in any Python package repository. To use it, you need to download and put the silicon directory in your Python project working directory, or in a directory of your Python path (os.path). To verify that Silicon is working, you may use one of the scripts provided in the demo directory, or follow this short tutorial.

1. Import everything from the silicon.components.all module, as well as ImageRenderer from the silicon.render module.

from silicon.components.all import *
from silicon.render import ImageRenderer

2. Create a new schematic using begin(). You can specify the scale of the schematic. Because the circuit will be rather simple and small, this example uses a scale of 3, so the components will be larger than the default size.

schem = begin(scale=3)

3. Every electronic component is represented by its own class. Add some components to the schematic. This is done by just calling constructors of the component classes. The components are always added to the schematic created by the most recent begin() call. This example uses only two-terminal components. Constructors of these components always require two arguments, the coordinates of the terminals. There are also more parameters, which are all described in the documentation.

# polar components have a positive and a negative terminal
battery = VoltageSource(
    negative=(0, 0),
    positive=(2, 0)
)
# non-polar components have a start and an end terminal
resistor = Resistor(
    start=(2, 2),
    end=(0, 2)
)
# you can also use already defined components to specify locations for new components
diode = LED(
    positive=resistor.end,
    negative=battery.negative
)

4. Now add a wire. A wire constructor has a unique syntax, that cannot be enforced by the Python language, but has to be followed for the wire to be able to be drawn. The constructor accepts any odd number of arguments. Every odd argument (counting from 1) must be a point and every even argument must be a path specifier. The specifier determines whether the wire section should be drawn as a single straight line, or two straight lines parallel to the X and Y axes. There can also be a filled circle at the start or end of each section. All possible values for path specifiers are defined by the silicon.components.common.PathSpecifier type alias and are explained in detail in the documentation. This example involves the simplest possible wire between two points.

# '-' is a path specifier for a single straight line with no circles
Wire(battery.positive, '-', resistor.start)

5. The order of adding components, wires and other elements is all up to the user. Although keeping them separate or grouped by their function or physical location in the schematic can make the code easier to read and maintain. When everything is added, the schematic can be drawn. For that, create a renderer using the ImageRenderer constructor and use its render() method to redner the schematic. The result will be stored in the renderer and will not be displayed or saved anywhere automatically.

renderer = ImageRenderer()
renderer.render(schem)

6. The schematic can be displayed using the show() method. By default, this will open a window with the generated schematic image. Most major Python editors can display pyplot images within the editor window itself. If you wish to display using a pyplot view, you may use the use_pyplot optional keyword argument.

renderer.show(use_pyplot=True)

7. If you need LaTeX code of the schematic, instead of using a renderer, you may use the following code:

with open('output.tex', 'w') as output:
    schem.render(target=output)

Below is the complete code for the example:

from silicon.components.all import *
from silicon.render import ImageRenderer

schem = begin(scale=3)

battery = VoltageSource(
    negative=(0, 0),
    positive=(2, 0)
)
resistor = Resistor(
    start=(2, 2),
    end=(0, 2)
)
diode = LED(
    positive=resistor.end,
    negative=battery.negative
)

Wire(battery.positive, '-', resistor.start)

# Uncomment to generate LaTeX code
# with open('output.tex', 'w') as output:
#     schem.render(target=output)

renderer = ImageRenderer()
renderer.render(schem)
renderer.show(use_pyplot=True)

which should produce the following image:

Note that the schematic has a transparent background. If you display it in a system window and your default image viewer supports transparency, the image may appear broken. Currently, there are no options to change the background or store the image file automatically, but you can copy the image from the window and save it manually.