PCB Design in PcbNew

Create PCB layouts with a wide array of tools from both KiCad schematics and third party sources such as EAGLE.

Interactive router

This modern tool will help you lay out your board faster.

Quickly swap between three different routing modes that respect your DRC:

  • Collision highlight - Show where traces you lay down interfere with others through simple highlighting

  • Shove - Push away traces and vias that are interfering with your new track

  • Walkaround - Make the best attempts to draw traces to your mouse cursor while going around obstacles

Additional video demonstration

Schematic Editor Integration

With just a click you can "cross-probe" between schematic and pcb and jump to components in the PCB.

Additionally, you can update the PCB from the schematic in just a few quick clicks.

Design Rules Check (DRC) with scripting support

Configure a standard set of design rules traditionally found in PCB Design tools or script your own custom rules that allow you to check for more complex combination of layout conditions to help you create high quality designs with ease.

Import / migrate from other CAD tools

KiCad currently supports PCB designs from:

  • Altium Circuit Maker

  • Altium Circuit Studio

  • Altium Designer

  • CADSTAR

  • EAGLE

  • EasyEDA (JLCEDA)

  • Fabmaster

  • P-CAD 200x ASCII

  • Solidworks

Length tuning

Tune trace lengths for high speed designs with the dedicated tool.

Footprint Editor