News

AISLER Becomes First Platinum Sponsor

Published 2021-08-20

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.

2020 Year End Funding Drive Results

Published 2021-01-16

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.

Project Lead Developer Interview on Fedevel Academy

Published 2020-12-17

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.

KiCad's 2020 End of Year Fund Drive

Published 2020-12-16

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.

kicad.org, the permanent internet home of KiCad

Published 2020-10-29

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.

KiCad and the Open Ventilator Project

Published 2020-05-20

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.

Project Leader Joins KiCad Services Corporation

Published 2019-12-02

The KiCad project is excited to announce the project leader, Wayne Stambaugh, has joined the KiCad Services Corporation. A video interview with KiCad Services Corporation founder Seth Hillbrand is available for viewing. This new position will allow the project leader to continue work on KiCad as much as possible when not working on behalf of the corporation. On behalf of The KiCad development team and its users, we would like to say thank you to the KiCad Services Corporation for its commitment to the project.

KiCad Joins the Linux Foundation

Published 2019-11-22

The KiCad project is excited to announce that the project has joined the Linux Foundation. This has the potential to provide additional avenues for donations to the KiCad project. It will also allow the project to use donations for services other than software development. Our current donation arrangement with CERN will continue as it always has so you can continue to donate via CERN if you prefer. This will give donors a choice of donation platforms.

KiCad Lead Developer Announcement

Published 2019-10-18

I don’t normally post blog announcements in the first person but I’m going to make an exception since this is rather important. This will also be my first blog post that isn’t good news. I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. I regret to inform everyone that I found out earlier this month that my employment with WIT will be terminated effective October 31st. I am not at liberty to discuss the details as to why my employment was terminated but can say that I had nothing to do with the decision.

First Annual KiCad Conference (KiCon) Wrap Up

Published 2019-04-30

For those of you who did not have the good fortune of being able to attend KiCon, you missed a great conference. If this years conference was any indication, you will not want to miss the next one. The conference completely sold out with 220 registrations. Attendees from all over the world gathered to share their experiences with KiCad. There were high quality talks, the badges were cool, everything ran smoothly, mHUB was the ideal venue, and the after hours events were a whole lot of (maybe too much) fun.

Changes 2 Development Highlight 16 Events 2 Media 1 News 26 Release Notes 42 Status Update 2