Bearmos writes, “Looks like more good things are going to be coming to KiCAD, thanks to the folks at CERN. It sounds like they’re committing a programmer full time for one year to the project.”
One of the main issues the open hardware community must overcome to reach a maturity level akin to that of open-source is the lack of state-of-the-art free/open EDA (electronic design automation) tools. Being aware of this, CERN’s Hardware and Timing team is actively working on bringing a new generation of free/open PCB design tools to the masses. (See also A Guide to Low-Cost PCB Tools.)
Via EETimes.
I sincerely hope this means some of the CERN projects will be converted to KiCAD and re-released.
As it stands, I propose 1st off the rank is this project, done using Altium: [ADC / DAC, 14 bits, 125MHZ sample rate, reminds me of Red Pitaya but only 1 channel]
http://www.ohwr.org/projects/fmc-adc125m14b1ch-dac600m14b1ch/wiki
My comment is “awaiting moderation”?
Why – because I included a link to one of the CERN hardware projects?
Looks like this is going to be really cool.
Take a look at the new push and shove router alpha demo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzro0Jc70xI
I’m just about to start learning kicad — I guess I joined the party at just the right time.
very important is to make KiCAD flexible and to may extend it’s features with easy scripting like Eagle’s ULPs
KiCAD always had Python integration.
Actually it’s pretty nice, they’ve already done things like a push’n’shove router (1). It still has it’s problems and limitations but they’re going the right way and have already some success.
Their stated goal is to implement the features needed to make KiCAD a CAD usable for professional production.
(1) Already available in the current testing branch
For those that want push and shove routing now, it is notable that the autorouter most often used with KiCAD has manual push and shove routing as well. Having it integrated in KiCAD will be nicer though for sure, but if you need it now, a stable implementation is available now.