This report presents recent developments in the application of free CAD software tools to the integrated circuits curricula at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Banja Luka. Due to recent introduction of highly specialized courses on one side and lack of funding on the other side, there exists a need for utilizing a comprehensive toolchain covering all steps of integrated circuits design at lowest cost–ie at no cost, if possible at all. A plan for such a trade-off was conceived two years ago and in this paper, actual implementations utilized over these two iterations of courses are presented. Modifications needed are described, student achievements (including devices fabricated and characterized in-house) and hands-on experiences are shown and important conclusions are given in order to further improve knowledge outcomes.