News

The KiCad project is excited to announce that it has been awarded a 50K Euro grant by the NLnet Foundation. This grant will fund the development of the SPICE simulation improvements, design import/migration wizard, CADSTAR library importer, database symbol libraries, footprint and 3D model wizard, flat schematics, and more. Many of the features funded by this grant will be available in the version 7.0 release of KiCad. A detailed list of the features and their development status can be found on the KiCad Developer’s Wiki.

Looking back on 2021, we at the KiCad Project feel a deep sense of gratitude. What could have been a lost year to the global pandemic and its associated effects (hello, supply chain!) has instead been a year of great progress at KiCad. This is in large measure due to our supportive and engaged community of users. Community Building We were not able to gather in person again this year.

The original KiCad domain name (kicad-pcb.org) was recently sold to an unnamed third party that is not affiliated with the KiCad Project or members of the KiCad Development Team. This sale was unexpected and may pose a risk to KiCad users. The new owners may simply post advertisements or (worst-case scenario) they may host malicious versions of the KiCad software for download. How did this happen? The domain name was originally registered in 2012 by the then project lead Dick Hollenbeck.

The KiCad project is excited to announce that AISLER B.V. has become our first platinum sponsor. AISLER has been making monthly donations for many years by sharing a percentage of all orders designed with KiCad as well as allowing their customers to make direct donations to KiCad. Their last twelve monthly donations have exceeded the $15,000 minimum required to become a platinum donor. The KiCad project would like to thank AISLER and their customers who use KiCad to design their boards for their support of the KiCad project.

On January 15th, 2021 the KiCad 2020 year end funding drive officially ended and it was a resounding success. A total of $14,275 was raised by individual donors which means the full $10,000 match was donated by the KiCad Services Corporation making the total donations for the funding drive $24,275. Thank you to everyone who donated. Your generosity is greatly appreciated and will help the project achieve it’s goals of getting the upcoming stable version 6 released as well as kicking off development of version 7 in the new year.

The KiCad project lead developer was recently interviewed by Robert Feranec of Fedevel Academy about the viability of using KiCad in corporate environments. The discussion includes addressing the concerns of corporate users, feature comparison to proprietary products, the feature set of of the upcoming version 6 release, and the future of KiCad development. If you are considering or are already using KiCad in corporate environment or you are just interested in KiCad development in general, click on the link above to hear all about KiCad development.

As 2020 draws to a close, the KiCad Project would like to express our deep gratitude to our community for your support and engagement over the past year. Now, more than ever, the benefits of a truly open and free EDA design platform are needed to share ideas, designs and support, inside your team and around the world. Community Development Many opportunities to connect in person have had to be postponed, canceled or changed.

Thanks to a generous donation by Digi-Key, the KiCad project is now found at the kicad.org domain. The kicad.org domain provides a stable, clear home for the KiCad project. We are extremely grateful to Digi-Key for their support of KiCad. kicad-pcb.org is now under control of an unknown entity the project has no relationship with. All previous links are unforunately broken.

The KiCad project is proud of our role as the electronic design application used by the Open Ventilator project. The Open Ventilator project is based on a release of the Medtronic PB560 ventilator mentioned in this Make article. The Open Ventilator project clearly demonstrates the potential of open hardware. The project was started by KiCad Services lead developer Seth Hillbrand early in the COVID-19 pandemic. It quickly gained more than 100 contributors from all over the world.