KiCon Europe 2025

Welcome to KiCon Europe! Opening Session

Large Language Models (LLMs) and Vision Language Models (VLMs) are transforming software development, but their application in hardware design is still emerging. To be genuinely useful in electronics design, it requires a structured understanding of the project. This talk presents AmpereBrain, a proof-of-concept that gives a local AI the tools to read and interpret KiCad projects in a structured way. We demonstrate how providing the AI with access to project specifications, schematic diagrams, and component-level details enables it to become a practical assistant. This allows for reliable, AI-powered help with tasks like documentation, component queries, and basic schematic reviews, laying the groundwork for more advanced, structured design modifications.

All things KiCad included version 9 release features and version 10 proposed feature set.

This talk introduces a new, "dead-simple" paradigm for KiCad libraries, powered by AmpereBrain. We will demonstrate a workflow where managing complex, version-controlled libraries becomes as easy as dragging and dropping a file. AmpereBrain automates the entire lifecycle: it ingests component files, organizes them into a Git-backed repository, and automatically searches for, downloads, and processes datasheets. We will showcase how this system creates an intelligent, queryable component database by loading datasheet information into a Large Language Model (LLM), allowing you to ask complex questions in natural language.

With ngspice integration in KiCad, simulations have never been more accessible in KiCad. But when the design gets complex, managing the simulations is complex. This talk presents a new methodology, enabled by AmpereBrain, that establishes a single, unified schematic as the source of truth for both design and multiple simulation scenarios. We will demonstrate a workflow centered on logically grouping components within your schematic. By programmatically activating these groups, you can define precise simulation boundaries on the fly, while the tool automatically filters out components irrelevant to the simulation. This structured approach is the key to enabling robust, repeatable simulation and paving the way for a true CI/CD workflow for hardware development.

Lots of open hardware projects are build using KiCad. Those are now being scraped by LLMs and other generative AI companies. Is that even compatible with the common licenses we typically use? How does this relate to EU legislation, and what does this mean in practice?

This talk will be focused on EU and related German law and is not applicable to other jurisdictions!

Design constraints are to many electronic engineers a necessary method to ensure that their designs can be produced reliably and complies to certain quality standards. KiCAD includes simple design rules editing to accommodate rudimentary needs, but for more complex designs, more advanced design rules are needed. This talk will describe methods for implementing constraints between netclasses using custom DRC.

KiCad variant support in version 10.

Join the KiCad Lead Developers and Librarian Team to discuss the direction of KiCad

DFMs are the starting points necessary for any design work for the manufacture of your PCBs by PCB suppliers. This presentation will show you some basics value to follow while making your PCB design on KiCAD.

Eilbek Research founders Alexander Willer and Augustin Bielefeld share the results of more than one year of work setting up an electronics production business in Germany. They will discuss what it takes to bring manufacturing back to Europe, and the role of KiCAD and open-source technology in this endeavor.

Thhis workshop is an introduction into simulation with the Eeschema/ngspice interface. Simple circuits, enhanced step-by-step, serve as demonstrators.

In a short introduction I will talk about why do we want to simulate. Then the ngspice simulator and its integration into KiCad is discussed.

The need for suitable ngspice models will be emphasized, where to find them, where to put them.

Then setting up a simulation is introduced by creating a resistive divider, step by step, and running op an dc simulations. An RC network will be used to introduce transient and ac simulations.

Then amplifiers and oscillators may follow, using transistors and opamps.

The rolle of subcircuit models, and the need for proper pin assigmants, especially for multi unit devices, will be discussed.

Depending on the feedback from the participants, more complex circuits (dc/dc converters, class D amplifiers ...) may be demonstrated.

The talk will look at the new IPC API for plugin development. It will demonstrate how to write a plugin using the new API in Python to do simple component placement.

In the KiCad libraries, the vast majority of footprints, over half the 3d models, and some of the symbols are generated from code. Come to this talk to learn about how the generators are structured, how they're evolving, and how this affects KiCad users and librarians.

Most integrated circuits come safely packaged in epoxy, but not everyone has that luxury. Sometimes, we need to handle bare dies and bond them ourselves. In this talk, I will give a short introduction to the wirebonding process for prototype chips and share some of the unexpected challenges I faced before finally getting my first chip to work.

Recently, Linus Torvalds has started to work on a few PCB designs using KiCAD for electric guitar effects. When I saw that, I immediatelly witnessed the opportunity to jump into this project and help out with FreeCAD, turning a PCB into an enclosed device. In this workshop, I will recreate the enclosure, that I designed for that project and create an assembly in FreeCAD, showcasing the interoperability of FreeCAD (mCAD) and KiCAD (eCAD). Everyone who is attending this workshow, is welcomed to follow the steps in FreeCAD.

SLiCAP: www.slicap.org is a symbolic linear circuit analysis program written in Python. It is intended to set up and solve design equations for analog circuits. It is used in BSc and MSc courses "Structured Electronic Design" at the TU Delft: https://analog-electronics.tudelft.nl. SLiCAP interfaces with KiCad, NGspice, Jupyter notebooks, LaTeX, Sphinx, and a CSV design database. This presentation shows you how to integrate SLiCAP into your analog-design workflow.

In Git, we typically bundle code changes with a commit message explaining the 'what' and 'why.' But commits often relate to broader contexts—issues, features, bugs—that aren't explicitly captured. This talk explores how we can leverage Git to add such context information and maybe learn new ways access information from Git

Thank you for attending KiCon Europe