![]() ![]() KiCad is a free software package for electronic design automation. It is a cross-platform program, written in C ++ with wxWidgets to run on Gnu / Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X, licensed under the GNU GPL v3. We can do this by installing the program in Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04 or Linux Mint through its new PPA. As in previous versions, It will serve us for the schematic capture and PCB layout. We will see how to install the latest release released today of this software. Pros: It’s free, and that is by far one of the biggest things it has going for it.In the next article we are going to take a look at how we can install Kicad 5.1.8. It’s also fully customizable, and has a great user base with many user created tutorials. You can create many layered PCB designs with no board size limits which is why I use it over the free version of Eagle.Ĭons: I have used Eagle, OpenCad, and many other cad softwares for PCB design over the years, and Kicad is a bit clunky. The UI, has plenty of glitches, and there are many counterintuitive functions which should be simple as they are in other similar softwares If you don’t have a mouse and are using a track pad on a laptop, it barely functions. Overall: I recommend Kicad for novice PCB designers, or for those who are looking for an open source software. If you’re expecting a professional free flowing software this is not it. However, it checks many of the boxes and allows for general PCB design. If you are wanting a simple software for easy and pick and place that integrates with a PCB manufacturer look elsewhere. If you are content hand selecting sizes and parts, this is a good software with great flexibility. Read More.KiCad was created in 1992 by Jean-Pierre Charras while working at IUT de Grenoble. The name came from the first letters in the name of a company of Jean-Pierre's friend in combination with the term CAD. KiCad originally was a collection of electronics programs intended to be used in conjunction with each other. The main tools were EESchema, PCBnew, a gerber viewer, and calculator. With the price of professionally made printed circuit boards rapidly dropping in price, hobbyists electronic design became much more popular. As a result, KiCad started gaining significant traction and a larger developer base. In 2013 the CERN BE-CO-HT section started contributing resources towards KiCad to help foster open hardware development by helping improve KiCad to be on par with commercial EDA tools. From 2013 until approximately 2018 CERN provided two developers part time to help improve KiCad. ![]() Much of the work provided by CERN involved massive refactoring of the code base to give KiCad a better structure to grow and adapt. ![]() Help is also provided by organizing donations and fundraisers to help pay for additional contract developers for KiCad, along with sponsoring KiCad's web infrastructure. Well over 1400 hours of developer time has been provided by CERN. ![]() Ī major milestone was hit in December 2015 starting with KiCad 4.0.0, the first KiCad release adopting a point release versioning scheme. This was the also the first release featuring the more advanced tools implemented by CERN developers. KiCad joined the Linux Foundation in November 2019. Īdditionally two lead developers formed a services corporation in 2019 to help provide additional paid development support for KiCad. KiCad uses an integrated environment for all of the stages of the design process: Schematic capture, PCB layout, Gerber file generation/visualization, and library editing. KiCad is a cross-platform program, written in C++ with wxWidgets to run on FreeBSD, Linux, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Many component libraries are available, and users can add custom components. The custom components can be available on a per-project basis or installed for use in any project. There are also tools to help with importing components from other EDA applications, for instance EAGLE. There are also third party libraries available for KiCad, including SnapEDA, and the Digi-Key KiCad Library. ![]()
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