Kicad is a schema and PCB designer solution, a complete and powerful CAD solution of eletronic engineers and hobbyist.

When you want to create a PCB, you need a CAD/EDA application in which you will draw the electronic schema and layout the PCB. You can use some professional software (Mentor PCB Systems, http://www.mentor.com/products/pcb/) but they are expensive. Others like Eagle may be used freely by hobbyist (http://www.cadsoft.de/). I am using Eagle freeware edition. Unfortunately, you are limited to a 10cm x 8cm PCB. Quite small but very usable and helpful.

In the Open Source community, I've discovered Kicad (http://www.lis.inpg.fr/realise_au_lis/kicad/index.html). It seems to be a very powerful CAD/EDA application. No board limitation! Several libraries describe the schematics and layout of some integrated circuits. Probably not as much as in Eagle but quite.

Well, a very nice application which appears to work well. The issue is to spend some time to use it, learn the differences when you are used to Eagle, and migrate the schemas and PCBs.

Congratulations Jean-pierre for this wonderful application!