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McCAD Autorouters are available in one of two options. You can select the router that best fits your budget and needs. Tracker is the lower cost of the two and has less features than Trailblazer. Both are built on the same router foundation. Trailblazer is the preferred environment by most designers. It offers greater depth of options and has an interactive mode making it highly desirable by designers tackling such difficult problems as BGA devices. Most of the discussion on this page applies to both routers except as noted.

McCAD Trailblazer's incredibly efficient autorouter will bring your McCAD PCB Design System to the forefront of today's design tools. Based on the principals of PUSH, SHOVE and INSERT, McCAD Trailblazer closely emulates the approach taken by professional board designers. This approach results in the most efficient use of board area with a minimum of vias thus producing the highest quality boards.

McCAD Trailblazer employs unique routing algorithms that deliver unprecedented performance, even on boards with today's complexity and sophisticated technology.

UNIQUE APPROACH
McCAD Trailblazer employs a routing strategy traditionally used by senior designers: route the most difficult areas first then the board will always be completed! To accomplish this, Trailblazer 's incredibly effective Sweep Router concentrates on each routing area -- individually -- in order to find the optimum path for each connection. Because the Sweep Router devotes it full power to analyzing specific areas of the board in meticulous detail, it can complete the routing for a given area very quickly and then move onto the next area.

COSTED WAVE FRONT & SHOVE ALGORITHMS
McCAD Trailblazer's Sweep Router is supported by two major algorithms: Costed Wave Front and Shove. The Costed Wave Front Algorithm analyzes routing paths in waves, from both the source and target of a connection. Once the ideal path is determined, the shove algorithm takes over and moves aside obstructing routes. McCAD Trailblazer is specifically written for extremely fast shove calculations to optimize routing paths. Other Trailblazer algorithms include:
Multi-pass Heuristics, for certain patterns
Tackdown, for avoiding dense areas
Rip-Up and Reroute
Jump, for moving routes past obstacles

EFFECTIVE USER INTERFACE
The Trailblazer has been implemented to take full advantage of intuitive human interface. Through easy to use dialogues and menus the user has full control of this powerful routing environment. The user can choose from automatic, semi-automatic, or interactive modes.(Please note that Tracker offers only the Batch Mode of routing) No longer are you restricted to the limitations of conventional routing technologies.