Mentor Graphics Corporation was a US-based

electronic design automation Electronic design automation (EDA), also referred to as electronic computer-aided design (ECAD), is a category of software tools for designing Electronics, electronic systems such as integrated circuits and printed circuit boards. The tools wo ...

(EDA)

multinational corporation A multinational corporation (MNC; also called a multinational enterprise (MNE), transnational enterprise (TNE), transnational corporation (TNC), international corporation, or stateless corporation, is a corporate organization that owns and cont ...

for

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

and

electronics Electronics is a scientific and engineering discipline that studies and applies the principles of physics to design, create, and operate devices that manipulate electrons and other Electric charge, electrically charged particles. It is a subfield ...

, headquartered in Wilsonville, Oregon. Founded in 1981, the company distributed products that assist in

, simulation tools for analog mixed-signal design,

VPN Virtual private network (VPN) is a network architecture for virtually extending a private network (i.e. any computer network which is not the public Internet) across one or multiple other networks which are either untrusted (as they are not c ...

solutions, and

fluid dynamics In physics, physical chemistry and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids – liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including (the study of air and other gases in motion ...

and heat transfer tools. The company leveraged

Apollo Computer Apollo Computer Inc. was an American technology corporation headquartered and founded in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1980 by William Poduska (a founder of Prime Computer) and others. Apollo Computer developed and produced Apoll ...

workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or computational science, scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating syste ...

s to differentiate itself within the

computer-aided engineering Computer-aided engineering (CAE) is the general usage of technology to aid in tasks related to engineering analysis. Any use of technology to solve or assist engineering issues falls under this umbrella. Overview Following alongside the con ...

(CAE) market with its

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

and hardware. Mentor Graphics was acquired by

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational technology conglomerate. It is focused on industrial automation, building automation, rail transport and health technology. Siemens is the largest engineering company in Europe, and holds the positi ...

in 2017. The name was retired in 2021 and renamed Siemens EDA, a segment of

Siemens Digital Industries Software Siemens Digital Industries Software (formerly UGS and then Siemens PLM Software) is an American computer software company specializing in 3D & 2D Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software. The company is a business unit of Siemens, operates un ...

History

Mentor Graphics was founded in 1981 by Tom Bruggere, Gerry Langeler, and Dave Moffenbeier, all formerly of

Tektronix Tektronix, Inc., historically widely known as Tek, is an American company best known for manufacturing test and measurement devices such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and video and mobile test protocol equipment. Originally an independent c ...

. The company raised $55 million in funding through an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...

in 1984. Mentor initially wrote software that ran only in

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

workstations. 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 Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

. After a frenzied development, the IDEA 1000 product was introduced at the 1982

Design Automation Conference The Design Automation Conference (DAC - The chips to systems conference) is an annual event that combines a technical conference with a trade show. It focuses on semiconductor and electronic system design, covering topics such as electronic desig ...

, though in a suite and not on the floor. Mentor Graphics was purchased by

in 2017. The name was retired in 2021 and renamed Siemens EDA, a segment of

Acquisitions

Timeline

* In June 2008,

Cadence Design Systems Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (stylized as cādence)Investor's Business DailCEO Lip-Bu Tan Molds Troubled Cadence Into Long-Term LeaderRetrieved November 12, 2020 is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology and computational ...

offered to acquire Mentor Graphics in a

leveraged buyout A leveraged buyout (LBO) is the acquisition of a company using a significant proportion of borrowed money (Leverage (finance), leverage) to fund the acquisition with the remainder of the purchase price funded with private equity. The assets of t ...

. 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. *In February 2011, activist investor

Carl Icahn Carl Celian Icahn (; born February 16, 1936) is an American businessman and investor. He is the founder and controlling shareholder of Icahn Enterprises, a public company and diversified conglomerate holding company based in Sunny Isles Beach, ...

offered to buy the company for about $1.86 billion in cash. *In November 2016, Mentor Graphics announced that it was to be acquired by

for $4.5 billion, at $37.25 per share, a 21% premium on Mentor's closing price on the previous Friday. The acquisition was completed in March 2017. At the time, this represented Siemens' biggest deal in the industrial software sector. Mentor Graphics started to operate as "Mentor, a Siemens Business". Under the terms of the acquisition, Mentor Graphics kept its headquarters in Wilsonville with workforce intact, and operated as an independent subsidiary. *In January 2021, Mentor became a division of Siemens and was renamed as Siemens EDA.

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 In integrated circuit design, integrated circuit (IC) layout, also known IC mask layout or mask design, is the representation of an integrated circuit in terms of planar geometric shapes which correspond to the patterns of metal, oxide, or semico ...

full-custom and

schematic-driven layout Schematic driven layout is the concept in integrated circuit layout or PCB PCB may refer to: Science and technology * Polychlorinated biphenyl, an organic chlorine compound, now recognized as an environmental toxin and classified as a persiste ...

(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

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM most commonly refers to: * A male sheep * Random-access memory, computer memory * Ram Trucks, US, since 2009 ** List of vehicles named Dodge Ram, trucks and vans ** Ram Pickup, produced by Ram Trucks Ram, ram, or RAM may also ref ...

(

synchronous Synchronization is the coordination of events to operate a system in unison. For example, the conductor of an orchestra keeps the orchestra synchronized or ''in time''. Systems that operate with all parts in synchrony are said to be synchrono ...

and

asynchronous Asynchrony is any dynamic far from synchronization. If and as parts of an asynchronous system become more synchronized, those parts or even the whole system can be said to be in sync. Asynchrony or asynchronous may refer to: Electronics and com ...

), as well as diffusion and metal read only memories (ROM) *IC

place and route Place and route (also called PnR or P&R) is a stage in the design of printed circuit boards, integrated circuits, and field-programmable gate arrays. As implied by the name, it is composed of two steps, placement and routing. The first step, p ...

tool: ''Aprisa'' *IC Verification tools such as ''Calibre nmDRC'', ''Calibre nmLVS'', ''Calibre xRC, Calibre xACT 3D, Calibre xACT'' * IC Design for Manufacturing tools such as'' Calibre LFD, Calibre YieldEnhancer, Calibre,'' and ''YieldAnalyzer'' *

Schematic capture Schematic capture or schematic entry is a step in the design cycle of electronic design automation (EDA) at which the electronic diagram, or electronic schematic of the designed electronic circuit, is created by a designer. This is done interac ...

editors for electronic schematics such as ''Xpedition Designer'' *

Layout In general terms, a layout is a structured arrangement of items within certain limits, or a plan for such arrangement. Specifically, layout may refer to: * Page layout, the arrangement of visual elements on a page ** Comprehensive layout (comp), ...

and design tools for

printed circuit board A printed circuit board (PCB), also called printed wiring board (PWB), is a Lamination, laminated sandwich structure of electrical conduction, conductive and Insulator (electricity), insulating layers, each with a pattern of traces, planes ...

s with programs such as ''PADS'', ''Xpedition Layout'', ''HyperLynx'' and ''Valor NPI'' *

Falcon Framework The Falcon Framework (or the Falcon Framework for Concurrent Design) was Mentor Graphics' second generation software environment. Whereas their original environment had been Pascal-based and ran exclusively on the Apollo/Domain platform, the Falcon ...

, software application framework *Component library management tools *

IP core IP most often refers to: * Intellectual property, creations of the mind for which exclusive legal rights are recognized * Internet Protocol, a set of rules for sending data across a network IP or Ip or ip may also refer to: Businesses and organi ...

s for ASIC and FPGA designs

Embedded systems

*Mentor Embedded Linux for ARM, MIPS, Power, and

x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel, based on the 8086 microprocessor and its 8-bit-external-bus variant, the 8088. Th ...

architecture processors *

Real-time operating system A real-time operating system (RTOS) is an operating system (OS) for real-time computing applications that processes data and events that have critically defined time constraints. A RTOS is distinct from a time-sharing operating system, such as Unix ...

s: ** Nucleus OS (acquired in 2002 when Mentor acquired Accelerated Technology, Inc.) ** VRTX (acquired in 1995 when Mentor bought Microtec Research) *

AUTOSAR AUTOSAR (AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture) is a global development partnership founded in 2003 by automotive manufacturers, suppliers and other companies from the electronics, semiconductor and software industries. Its purpose is to develop ...

implementation: **Embedded implementation VSTAR in part acquired from Mecel in 2013 **Configuration tooling Volcano Vehicle Systems Builder (VSB) *Development Tools: **Sourcery CodeBench and Sourcery GNU

toolchain A toolchain is a set of software development tools used to build and otherwise develop software. Often, the tools are executed sequentially and form a pipeline such that the output of one tool is the input for the next. Sometimes the term is us ...

s (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 The Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) is an obsolete method for implementing virtual private networks. PPTP has many well known security issues. PPTP uses a TCP control channel and a Generic Routing Encapsulation tunnel to encapsulate ...

(PPTP) software **Nucleus NET networking stack **Nucleus implementation of the

Microsoft Point-to-Point Encryption Microsoft Point-to-Point Encryption (MPPE) encrypts data in Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP)-based dial-up connections or Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) virtual private network (VPN) connections. 128-bit key (strong), 56-bit key, and 40-bit ...

(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 ModelSim is a multi-language environment by Siemens (previously developed by Mentor Graphics,) for simulation of hardware description languages such as VHDL, Verilog and SystemC, and includes a built-in C debugger.

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 250px, Europa II 200px, Rolls-Royce ''RZ-12'' 200px, ''Coralie'' 200px, ''Astris'' The European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) is a former European space research organisation. It was first developed in order to establish a sate ...

is a

SPICE In the culinary arts, a spice is any seed, fruit, root, Bark (botany), bark, or other plant substance in a form primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of pl ...

simulator *Xpedition AMS is a virtual lab for

mechatronic Mechatronics engineering, also called mechatronics, is the synergistic integration of mechanical, electrical, and computer systems employing mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, electronic engineering and computer engineering, and also ...

system design and analysis *ADiT is a Fast-SPICE simulator *Questa ADMS is a mixed-signal verification tool

Emulation

* The Veloce product family enables

SoC SOC, SoC, Soc, may refer to: Science and technology * Information security operations center, in an organization, a centralized unit that deals with computer security issues * Selectable output control * Separation of concerns, a program design pr ...

emulation and transaction-based acceleration to verify and rectify issues on HDL designs

prefabrication Prefabrication is the practice of assembling components of a structure in a factory or other manufacturing site, and transporting complete assemblies or sub-assemblies to the construction site where the structure is to be located. Some research ...

Mechanical design

*Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer tools: **Simcenter Flotherm is a

Computational Fluid Dynamics Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical analysis and data structures to analyze and solve problems that involve fluid dynamics, fluid flows. Computers are used to perform the calculations required ...

tool dedicated to

electronics cooling Electronics cooling encompasses thermal design, analysis and experimental characterization of electronic systems as a discrete discipline with the product creation process for an electronics product, or an electronics sub-system within a product (e. ...

using parameterized 'SmartParts' for common electronic components such as fans,

heatsink A heat sink (also commonly spelled heatsink) is a passive heat exchanger that transfers the heat generated by an electronic or a mechanical device to a fluid medium, often air or a liquid coolant, where it is dissipated away from the device, ...

s, and IC packages. **Simcenter Flotherm XT is an

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 Flux describes any effect that appears to pass or travel (whether it actually moves or not) through a surface or substance. Flux is a concept in applied mathematics and vector calculus which has many applications in physics. For transport phe ...

chromaticity Chromaticity is an objective specification of the quality of a color regardless of its luminance. Chromaticity consists of two independent parameters, often specified as '' hue'' (''h'') and ''colorfulness'' (''s''), where the latter is alte ...

and

correlated color temperature Correlated color temperature (CCT, Tcp) refers to the "temperature of a Planckian radiator whose perceived color most closely resembles that of a given stimulus at the same brightness and under specified viewing conditions". The SI unit is the ...

(CCT) for power

LED A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (corresp ...

s. With T3Ster it provides

thermal resistance In heat transfer, thermal engineering, and thermodynamics, thermal conductance and thermal resistance are fundamental concepts that describe the ability of materials or systems to conduct heat and the opposition they offer to the heat current. ...

metrics for LEDs based on the real dissipated heating power. **Simcenter DYNTIM extends T3Ster, providing a dynamic thermal test station for

thermal conductivity The thermal conductivity of a material is a measure of its ability to heat conduction, conduct heat. It is commonly denoted by k, \lambda, or \kappa and is measured in W·m−1·K−1. Heat transfer occurs at a lower rate in materials of low ...

measurements of thermal interface materials (TIMs),

thermal grease Thermal paste (also called thermal compound, thermal grease, thermal interface material (TIM), thermal gel, heat paste, heat sink compound, heat sink paste or CPU grease) is a Thermal conductivity, thermally conductive (but usually not Insula ...

s 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).

References

{{Authority control Companies based in Wilsonville, Oregon 1981 establishments in Oregon 2017 mergers and acquisitions Electronic design automation companies Electronics companies established in 1981 Defunct electronics companies of the United States Siemens American subsidiaries of foreign companies Defunct software companies of the United States