Intercept Technology Inc., a leader in EDA engineering and layout applications, announces a major new enhancement release of its Pantheon PCB layout software, which includes specialized RF and Hybrid design flows. Following version 7's award-winning debut*, Intercept continues to make great strides forward with its latest version, 7.0_02C.

“With Pantheon’s new user interface reaching maturity, the engineering team is now making great strides in core functionality,” said John Towers, engineering manager. “Our focus this year is to increase usability for all technology areas while continuing to forge new ground for RF and Hybrid designers.”

The most notable new feature is Pantheon's 3D viewer; see a video demonstration here. The viewer displays actual stackup and dielectric layer heights, as defined by the user, with easy to use object selection and reporting.

Secondary to the 3D viewer, the new Pantheon version boasts brand new via handling. Click here for a video demonstration. Vias and via arrays can be easily added to board, block, or component geometries, while newer capabilities allow for automatic via stitching along a manually drawn line or on the interior or exterior of selected objects. Wire shielding and ground shielding are no longer manual procedures. Vias can be automatically generated with or without DRC checking, with user specified clearances to control the number of vias created, the number of rows of vias, and the required clearance from each design object.

To accommodate customers with increasing board sizes and panel arrays, the new version includes major performance increases across the entire application. In line with this, a new navigator panel was introduced that allows users to see the area they are viewing on their board and pan the view more fluidly.