Open Hardware at CERN in practice: electronics

Friday 9 May 2025, 14:00 → 17:00 Europe/Zurich

503/1-001 - Council Chamber (CERN)

The CERN Open Source Program Office (OSPO) invites you to a half-day event which will provide a complete picture of the journey from idea to commercial Open Source Hardware (OSHW) at CERN. The target audience is electronics designers, and anybody with an interest in OSHW at CERN and elsewhere. This event will focus on Printed Circuit Board (PCB) design, manufacturing, test and interaction with companies for procurement and commercialisation.

1 Welcome and introduction

This quick presentation will provide an introduction to the event, whose main purpose is to take designers on a journey from design idea to commercial Open Source Hardware (OSHW) in the CERN context. We start with the importance of Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) tools for Printed Circuit Board (PCB) design, and a presentation of KiCad, which now benefits from commercial support at CERN. We then move on to the support you can expect from CERN’s electronics design office and from the IT department. Whether you design collaboratively or on your own, you can use the Open Hardware Repository to share your designs and related information with the world, either throughout the design process or at the end. The Knowledge Transfer (KT) group helps you maximise the impact of your designs outside CERN. In collaboration with the CERN Open Source Program Office (OSPO) they provide guidance including interaction with companies and recommendations for the use of the CERN Open Hardware Licence (OHL). Procurement is an essential part of the process. This is when you change hats, stop designing and start purchasing hardware. The CERN procurement service helps you in this important part of the journey. We will finish with two examples putting it all together: radiation-tolerant lighting and White Rabbit. Then we will have a bit of time for discussion in the meeting room. Those who want to continue are welcome to join us after the event in nearby restaurant #1 for more informal discussion, hopefully on the terrace if the weather is good!

Speaker: Javier Serrano (CERN)

2 KiCad: a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) tool for Printed Circuit Board (PCB) design

This presentation introduces KiCad, a powerful, free and open-source software suite for Printed Circuit Board (PCB) design. With robust features, active development, and growing community support, KiCad is a viable alternative to proprietary tools. We'll highlight key capabilities, recent improvements, and examples of successful designs to show why it's well-suited for use at CERN.

Speaker: Roberto Fernandez Bautista (CERN)

3 The CERN Electronics Design Office

Speaker: Raphael Berberat (CERN)

4 IT support for Electronics Design Automation (EDA) tools

This presentation highlights the current level of IT support for KiCad users. We will outline the contract we have established with KSC to provide efficient technical support to our engineers; the scripts that convert our Altium parts library to KiCad; and a new CMF package for KiCad that will help automate software installation and library setup for Windows users.

Speaker: Christos Gentsos (CERN (IT-CA-GES))

5 The Open Hardware Repository

Speaker: Dimitris Lampridis (CERN)

15:10 Coffee break

6 Knowledge Transfer (KT) at CERN and Open Hardware

Speaker: Benjamin Frisch (CERN)

7 The CERN Open Hardware Licence

Speaker: Dane Tacchini (CERN)

8 Support for Open Hardware in CERN's Open Source Program Office (OSPO)

The CERN OSPO provides support for designers willing to open-source their hardware and gateware designs. This is in addition to the more traditional support offered by OSPOs in the context of software.
The OSPO is not involved in the decision to open-source a given design. Its role is guiding and facilitating the open-sourcing process once that decision has been made. The support includes:

• Maintaining a set of best practices for sharing hardware and gateware designs in the OSPO documentation website.
• Discussing licensing options, in collaboration with Knowledge Transfer (KT), and providing advice on how to publish the designs to maximise impact and gather communities around them.
• Participating with KT and procurement in discussions with companies and other potential stakeholders, in particular explaining how Open Source Hardware (OSHW) can be made part of an overall commercial strategy, and providing examples thereof.
• Providing advice on the drafting of Price Enquiry and Call for Tender documents in the context of OSHW, in collaboration with the IPT-PI-SU (procurement of supplies) section.

The talk will quickly present the CERN OSPO and summarise the different types of support hardware designers can expect from it, providing references and points of contact for those who would like to discuss further.

Speaker: Hamza Boukabache (CERN)

9 Procurement of Open Hardware

Speaker: Josh Davison (CERN)

10 Putting it all together: radiation-tolerant lighting in CERN's Proton Synchrotron (PS)

Speaker: James Devine (CERN)

11 Putting it all together: White Rabbit

Speaker: Adam Artur Wujek

12 Discussion session

Speaker: Evangelia Gousiou (CERN)