Digi-Key Announced 1.0 Release of the KiCad Library

10 July, 2018

“After more than 140 GitHub commits and reviews of each part in the library, we are ready to announce the 1.0 release”

The global electronic components distributor, Digi-Key Electronics, announced the availability of open source, Digi-Key KiCad symbol and footprint library with a 1.0 status on its GitHub Repository. The “version 1.0” is a major milestone for the library development, indicating that the library is “complete”, has all major features, and is considered reliable enough for general release to engineers, designers, and customers.

KiCad is an open source software suite for Electronic Design Automation (EDA). The programs handle Schematic Capture, and PCB Layout with Gerber output. The suite runs on Windows, Linux and macOS and is licensed under GNU GPL v3. The first release date was in 1992 by its original author, Jean-Pierre Charras, but is now currently under development by the KiCad Developers Team.

Digi-Key collaborated with the KiCad user community to refine library management processes, the data included with the parts, and worked extensively to improve the quality of the symbols and footprints. Each part is infused with Digi-Key descriptions, part numbers, and more data that allows for easy Bill of Materials resolution and uploading to the Digi-Key cart or BOM tool.

“After more than 140 GitHub commits and reviews of each part in the library, we are ready to announce the 1.0 release,” said Randall Restle, VP, Applications Engineering. “This is not the end of development and we are working hard to add more parts to the library and provide KiCad users with a useful set of symbols and footprints for their rapid prototyping needs. We are especially concentrating on difficult to make connectors and IoT modules.”

Digi-Key Electronics, headquartered in Thief River Falls, Minn., USA, is an authorized global, full-service distributor of electronic components, offering more than 6.8 million products, with over 1.4 million in stock and available for immediate shipment, from over 750 quality name-brand manufacturers. Digi-Key also offers a wide variety of online resources such as EDA and design tools, datasheets, reference designs, instructional articles and videos, multimedia libraries, and much more.

For more information about KiCad as well as the company’s full portfolio of EDA and design tools, visit the Digi-Key website.

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