Mentor Graphics

Mentor Graphics Corporation was a US-based electronic design automation (EDA) multinational corporation for electrical engineering and electronics, headquartered in Wilsonville, Oregon. Founded in 1981, the company distributed products that assist in electronic design automation, simulation tools for analog mixed-signal design, VPN solutions, and fluid dynamics and heat transfer tools. The company leveraged Apollo Computer workstations to differentiate itself within the computer-aided engineering (CAE) market with its software and hardware.

Mentor Graphics Corporation
TypePrivate[1]
IndustryEDA, Embedded Software
Founded1981
FounderTom Bruggere Edit this on Wikidata
FateAcquired by Siemens and merged into Siemens Digital Industries Software
HeadquartersWilsonville, Oregon,
United States
45°19′10″N 122°45′46″W
ProductsNucleus OS, Sourcery CodeBench, ModelSim/QuestaSim, Calibre, Veloce
RevenueIncrease$1.28B USD (2017)[2]
Increase$155 million USD (2017)[2]
Total assets
  • Increase US$ 1.745284 billion (2013) [3]
  • Increase US$ 1.550675 billion (2012) [4]
Number of employees
5,968 (2017)[5]

Mentor Graphics was acquired by Siemens in 2017. The name was retired in 2021 and renamed Siemens EDA, a segment of Siemens Digital Industries Software.

History

Mentor Graphics was founded in 1981 by Tom Bruggere, Gerry Langeler, and Dave Moffenbeier, all formerly of Tektronix.[6] The company raised $55 million in funding through an initial public offering in 1984.[6]

Mentor initially wrote software that ran only in Apollo workstations.[7]

When Mentor entered the CAE market the company had two technical differentiators: the first was the software – Mentor, Valid, and Daisy each had software with different strengths and weaknesses. The second, was the hardware – Mentor ran all programs on the Apollo workstation, while Daisy and Valid each built their own hardware. By the late 1980s, all EDA companies abandoned proprietary hardware in favor of workstations manufactured by companies such as Apollo and Sun Microsystems.

After a frenzied development, the IDEA 1000 product was introduced at the 1982 Design Automation Conference, though in a suite and not on the floor.[8]

Mentor Graphics was purchased by Siemens in 2017. The name was retired in 2021 and renamed Siemens EDA, a segment of Siemens Digital Industries Software.[9]

Acquisitions

Timeline
Year announced Company Business Value (USD) References
1995 Microtec Research Software development $130 million [10]
1999 VeriBest EDA subsidiary of Intergraph Corp. not disclosed [11][12]
2002 Accelerated Technology RTOS & embedded software not disclosed [13]
2002 Innoveda Printed circuit board & wire harness design $160 million [14]
2002 IKOS Systems Emulation product $124 million [15]
2004 Project Technology Executable UML not disclosed [16]
2007 Sierra Design Automation Place and route $90 million [17]
2008 Flomerics Computational fluid dynamics $59.72 million [18]
2009 LogicVision Silicon manufacturing testing $13 million [19]
2010 Valor Computerized Systems PCB systems manufacturing $82 million [20]
2010 CodeSourcery GNU-based tools not disclosed [21]
2014 Nimbic Electromagnetic simulation not disclosed [22]
2014 Berkeley Design Automation AMS circuit verification not disclosed [23]
2015 Tanner EDA AMS & MEMS integrated circuits not disclosed [24]
2015 Calypto Design Systems High level synthesis not disclosed [25]
  • In June 2008, Cadence Design Systems offered to acquire Mentor Graphics in a leveraged buyout. On 15 August 2008, Cadence withdrew this offer quoting an inability to raise the necessary capital and the unwillingness of Mentor Graphics' Board and management to discuss the offer.[26]
  • In February 2011, activist investor Carl Icahn offered to buy the company for about $1.86 billion in cash.[27]
  • In November 2016, Mentor Graphics announced that it was to be acquired by Siemens for $4.5 billion,[28] at $37.25 per share, a 21% premium on Mentor's closing price on the previous Friday.[29] The acquisition was completed in March 2017.[30] Mentor Graphics started to operate as "Mentor, a Siemens Business".[31] Under the terms of the acquisition, Mentor Graphics kept its headquarters in Wilsonville with workforce intact, and operated as an independent subsidiary.[1]
  • In January 2021, Mentor became a division of Siemens and was renamed as Siemens EDA.[32]

Locations

Mentor product development was located in the US, Taiwan, Egypt, Poland, Hungary, Japan, France, Canada, Pakistan, UK, Armenia, India and Russia.

Products

Mentor offered the following tools:

Electronic design automation
  • Integrated circuit layout full-custom and schematic-driven layout (SDL) tools such as IC Station or Memory Builder, a first industry tool for rapid embedded memory design that helped to develop single- or dual-port RAMs (synchronous and asynchronous), as well as diffusion and metal read only memories (ROM)
  • IC place and route tool: Aprisa
  • IC Verification tools such as Calibre nmDRC, Calibre nmLVS, Calibre xRC, Calibre xACT 3D
  • IC Design for Manufacturing tools such as Calibre LFD, Calibre YieldEnhancer, Calibre, and YieldAnalyzer
  • Schematic capture editors for electronic schematics such as Xpedition Designer
  • Layout and design tools for printed circuit boards with programs such as PADS, Xpedition Layout, HyperLynx and Valor NPI
  • Falcon Framework, software application framework[33]
  • Component library management tools
  • IP cores for ASIC and FPGA designs

Embedded systems
  • Mentor Embedded Linux[34] for ARM, MIPS, Power, and x86 architecture processors
  • Real-time operating systems:
    • Nucleus OS (acquired in 2002 when Mentor acquired Accelerated Technology, Inc.)
    • VRTX (acquired in 1995 when Mentor bought Microtec Research)
  • AUTOSAR implementation:
    • Embedded implementation VSTAR in part acquired from Mecel in 2013[35]
    • Configuration tooling Volcano Vehicle Systems Builder (VSB)
  • Development Tools:
    • Sourcery CodeBench and Sourcery GNU toolchains (acquired in 2010 when Mentor acquired CodeSourcery)
    • Inflexion UI – (Next Device was acquired by Mentor in 2006)
    • xtUML Design Tools: BridgePoint (acquired in 2004 when Mentor acquired Project Technology)
  • VPN Solutions:
    • Nucleus Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) software
    • Nucleus NET networking stack
    • Nucleus implementation of the Microsoft Point-to-Point Encryption (MPPE) protocol
    • Nucleus PPP software

FPGA synthesis
  • Precision Synthesis – Advanced RTL & physical synthesis for FPGAs

Electrical systems, cabling, and harness
  • Capital – a suite of integrated tools for the design, validation and manufacture of electrical systems and harnesses
  • VeSys – a mid-market toolset for vehicle electrical system and harness design

Simulation
  • ModelSim is a hardware simulation and debug environment primarily targeted at smaller ASIC and FPGA design
  • QuestaSim is a simulator with advanced debug capabilities targeted at complex FPGA's and SoC's. QuestaSim can be used by users who have experience with ModelSim as it shares most of the common debug features and capabilities. One of the main differences between QuestaSim and Modelsim (besides performance/capacity) is that QuestaSim is the simulation engine for the Questa Platform which includes integration of Verification Management, Formal based technologies, Questa Verification IP, Low Power Simulation and Accelerated Coverage Closure technologies. QuestaSim natively supports SystemVerilog for Testbench, UPF, UCIS, OVM/UVM where ModelSim does not.
  • Eldo is a SPICE simulator
  • Xpedition AMS is a virtual lab for mechatronic system design and analysis
  • ADiT is a Fast-SPICE simulator
  • Questa ADMS is a mixed-signal verification tool

Emulation

Mechanical design
  • Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer tools:
    • Simcenter Flotherm is a Computational Fluid Dynamics tool dedicated to electronics cooling using parameterized ‘SmartParts’ for common electronic components such as fans, heatsinks, and IC packages.
    • Simcenter Flotherm XT is an electronics cooling CFD tool incorporating a solid modeler for manipulating MCAD parts.
    • Simcenter FLOEFD is a ‘design concurrent’ CFD tool for use in early-stage product design and is embedded within MCAD systems such as Solidworks, Creo Elements/Pro, CATIA V5 and Siemens NX.
  • Thermal Characterization and Thermal Interface Material (TIM) Measurement equipment:
    • Simcenter T3STER is a hardware product that embodies an implementation of the JEDEC JESD51-1 standard for IC package thermal characterization and is compliant with JESD51-14 for Rth-JC measurement.
    • Simcenter TERALED provides automation of the CIE 127:2007 standard providing total flux, chromaticity and correlated color temperature (CCT) for power LEDs. With T3Ster it provides thermal resistance metrics for LEDs based on the real dissipated heating power.
    • Simcenter DYNTIM extends T3Ster, providing a dynamic thermal test station for thermal conductivity measurements of thermal interface materials (TIMs), thermal greases and gap pads.
  • Simcenter Flomaster is a 1D or system-level CFD solution for analyzing fluid mechanics in complex pipe flow systems (from the acquisition of Flowmaster Ltd in 2012).
  • CADRA Design Drafting is a 2-1/2D mechanical drafting and documentation package specifically designed for drafting professionals. It provides the tools needed to develop complex drawings quickly and easily (from the acquisition of the CADRA product in 2013).

See also

References
  1. "Siemens says Mentor will keep its name, business and HQ". 4 April 2017.
  2. "Mentor Graphics Reports Fiscal Fourth Quarter Results" (PDF). Retrieved 2018-01-22.
  3. "MENTOR GRAPHICS CORP 2013 Q3 Quarterly Report Form (10-Q)" (XBRL). United States Securities and Exchange Commission. December 4, 2013.
  4. "MENTOR GRAPHICS CORP 2012 Annual Report Form (10-K)" (XBRL). United States Securities and Exchange Commission. March 15, 2013.
  5. "MENTOR GRAPHICS CORP 2017 Form 10-K". Retrieved 2018-01-22.
  6. Rogoway, Mike (March 30, 2017). "Siemens completes $4.5 billion purchase of Mentor Graphics". Oregon Live. Retrieved November 4, 2022.
  7. Fisher, Lawrence M. (8 January 1989). "In Hot Pursuit of Mentor Photos of Mentor's chief executive, Thomas H. Bruggere, with the package deal: Software by Mentor Graphics, running on Apollo hardware (NYT/Brian Drake); the chassis of an Apollo workstation, which uses Mentor's software system". The New York Times. Retrieved November 4, 2022.
  8. The Mentor Graphics Story copyright 1988 Mentor Graphics Corporation
  9. Dahad, Nitin. "Mentor Finally Becomes Siemens EDA From January 2021". EE Times.
  10. "COMPANY NEWS; MENTOR GRAPHICS TO ACQUIRE MICROTEC RESEARCH (Published 1995)". The New York Times. 1995-10-11. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-01-23.
  11. "Mentor Graphics acquires Intergraph's VeriBest subsidiary". Portland Business Journal. Retrieved 2019-03-22.
  12. Ascierto, Jerry. "Mentor Buys Veribest". EDN. Retrieved 2019-03-22.
  13. "Mentor acquires RTOS vendor Accelerated Technology". 7 March 2002.
  14. "Squeeze is on, as Mentor, Cadence make acquisitions". EETimes. Retrieved 2019-03-22.
  15. Olavsrud, Thor (March 13, 2002). "Mentor Graphics Acquires IKOS". internetnews.com. Retrieved 2023-07-16.
  16. "Mentor acquires Project Technology". April 2004.
  17. "Mentor buys Sierra Design for $90 million". www.bizjournals.com. Silicon Valley Business Journal. 2007-06-11. Retrieved 2021-11-10.
  18. "Mentor Graphics Has Acquired Flomerics". 3 July 2008.
  19. "Mentor now owns LogicVision". Portland Business Journal. August 18, 2009. Retrieved 2009-08-22.
  20. "Mentor completes Valor acquisition". 18 March 2010.
  21. "Mentor, RIM buy embedded software firms". 2 December 2010.
  22. Corp, Mentor Graphics. "Mentor Graphics Acquires Nimbic, Inc". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 2021-01-23.
  23. Graphics, Mentor. "Mentor Graphics Acquires Berkeley Design Automation to Advance Nanometer Analog/Mixed-Signal Verification". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 2021-01-23.
  24. "Mentor Graphics Acquires Tanner EDA". Retrieved 2017-09-08.
  25. Corporation, Mentor Graphics. "Mentor Graphics Acquires Calypto Design Systems". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 2021-01-23.
  26. "Cadence Withdraws". Retrieved 2008-09-18.
  27. "Icahn Bids $1.86 Billion for Mentor Graphics, Seeks Offers". Bloomberg.com. 22 February 2011.
  28. Machine Design Siemens Acquires Mentor Graphics for $4.5 Billion Retrieved November 14, 2016
  29. "Siemens to expand its digital industrial leadership with acquisition of Mentor Graphics". www.mentor.com. Retrieved 2016-11-14.
  30. Rogoway, Mike. "Siemens completes $4.5 billion purchase of Mentor Graphics". The Oregonian/OregonLive. Retrieved 30 March 2017.
  31. "Mentor, a Siemens Business".
  32. "Mentor Finally Becomes Siemens EDA from January 2021". 15 December 2020.
  33. Krishnakumar, Anish Nallamur (January 20, 2022). "Design and Run-Time Resource Management of Domain-Specific Systems-on-Chip (DSSoCs)" (PDF). eLab: Energy Efficient Embedded Exploration. University of Wisconsin-Madison. Retrieved 19 May 2023.
  34. "Mentor Embedded Linux Development Platform". www.mentor.com. Retrieved 2016-09-19.
  35. "Mentor Graphics acquires Mecel Picea AUTOSAR Development Suite". www.mentor.com. Retrieved 2016-09-01.
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