KiCad Open-Source PCB Design Software Keeps Working Towards Its Next Big Release

Written by Michael Larabel in Free Software on 8 February 2019 at 03:49 AM EST. 24 Comments
FREE SOFTWARE
KiCad remains the leading open-source electronic design suite for PCB design and other features. KiCad had a successful 2018 with the software even being used by System76 as part of the daughter board PCB designs with Thelio desktop computer, but looking ahead the developers are still working towards version 6.0.

KiCad 6.0 is still a ways out from releasing but will feature a redesigned GTK3 user-interface, various circuit board design enhancements, highlighting improvements, a graphics abstraction layer / canvas to allow drawing more advanced graphics, improved coverage for the electrical rules checker, usage of Cairo for printing, and various other additions.

The state of KiCad was talked about last weekend at FOSDEM in Brussels. Those wanting to learn more about this electronics design open-source software can see the ODP slides or WebM recording.

If you haven't heard of this decades old software, you can learn more at KiCad.org.
Related News
About The Author
Michael Larabel

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

Popular News This Week