Panasonic and Ansoft have released a design kit for Any Layer Interstitial Via Hole (ALIVH) Board for Nexxim, HFSS and Ansoft Designer. The design kit can be used together with Panasonic surface mount technology (SMT) components, such as varistors and common mode noise filters. Engineers designing high-performance HDMI signal lines can utilize this design kit to ensure the signal quality of the digital signal content. The kit is equipped with scalable differential and common mode elements that can be applied in circuit- and system-level simulations to produce realistic waveforms. Panasonic's ALIVH technology has several unique features. Engineers can design circuit boards that are more compact because via holes can be placed in all layers of the board.

These compact board designs allow engineers to add greater circuit functionality due to the increased real estate and to shorten the effective trace length for high-speed signal circuits, resulting in greater performance. Lighter weight is achieved by applying non-woven aramid reinforcement and via holes free of copper plating. ALIVH board applications include portable communication information terminal devices, such as cellular phones and PDA; small-sized electronic equipment, such as digital video cameras; and package substrate, such as multi-chip modules (MCMs).

The Panasonic ALIVH Design Kit is available in scalable form, allowing users to modify board stack-ups to maximize the performance of printed circuit boards based on the Panasonic ALIVH technology. Panasonic ALIVH Board and device models are reputed for their accuracy and robustness, and all extracted parasitic elements and coupling have been verified to converge under all operating conditions. The design kit is available from Panasonic's Web site. Panasonic will maintain model support and upgrades, while Ansoft will address all customer support for Nexxim and Ansoft Designer.