Mentor Graphics
Encyclopedia
Mentor Graphics, Inc is a US
-based multinational corporation
dealing in electronic design automation
(EDA) for electrical engineering
and electronics
, as of 2004, ranked third in the EDA industry it helped create. The company, founded in 1981, is headquartered in Wilsonville, Oregon
, and employs 4,000 people worldwide.
for electronics as the foundation of a company occurred to several groups - those who founded Mentor, Valid Logic Systems
, and Daisy Systems
. One of the main distinctions between these groups was that the founding engineers of Mentor, whose backgrounds were in software development
at Tektronix
, ruled out designing and manufacturing proprietary computers to run their software applications. They felt that hardware
was going to become a commodity owned by big computer companies, so instead they would select an existing computer system as the hardware platform for the Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) programs they would build.
By February 1981, most of the start-up team had been identified; by March, the three executive founders, Tom Bruggere
, Gerry Langeler and Dave Moffenbeier had left Tektronix, and by May the business plan was complete. The first round of money, $1 million, came from Sutter Hill, Greylock, and Venrock Associates. The next round was $2 million from five venture capital firms, and in April 1983 a third round raised $7 million more. Mentor Graphics was one of the first companies to attract venture capital to Oregon.
Apollo Computer
workstations were chosen as the initial hardware platform. Based in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, Apollo was less than a year old and had only announced itself to the public a few weeks before the founders of Mentor Graphics began their initial meetings.
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 for schematic capture, but ran simulation and other programs on larger computers such as the MicroVAX
.
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.
By the time founder Bruggere ran for the U.S. Senate in 1996
, the company had grown to annual revenues of $384 million.
Mentor Graphics is a global company with product development being done in the USA, Europe, Japan, Pakistan, India and Egypt. In keeping with global trends in software development, the company has a substantial labor force in lower cost locations such as Pakistan, India, Poland, Hungary and Egypt.
James "Jim" Ready
, one of the more colorful people in embedded system
s, left Mentor in 1999 to form the embedded Linux
company MontaVista
. Neil Henderson, a pioneer in the royalty-free, source provided market space, joined Mentor Graphics in 2002 with the acquisition of Accelerated Technology Inc. Stephen Mellor
, a leader in the UML space and co-originator of the Shlaer-Mellor
design methodology, joined Mentor Graphics in 2004 with the acquisition of Project Technology.
As of 2011, Mentor's major competitors are Cadence Design Systems
, Synopsys
and Magma Design Automation
.
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. Mentor acquired Flomerics Group plc for $60 million in cash in October 2008, and in August 2009, Mentor completed the acquisition of silicon manufacturing testing company LogicVision
for $13 million in an all stock deal. Mentor completed the acquisition of Valor Computerized Systems in March 2010 in a cash and stock deal valued at $50 million.
On 22 February 2011, Carl Icahn
, an activist investor, made an offer to buy the company for about $1.86 billion in cash in a move to push other suitors to declare themselves.
. He started as CEO in October 1993. Gregory K. Hinckley serves as the president of the corporation and has been a corporate officer since January 1997.
The company distributes the following tools.
SoC emulation/acceleration - Veloce products family enables SoC emulation and best transaction based acceleration.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
-based multinational corporation
Corporation
A corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...
dealing in electronic design automation
Electronic design automation
Electronic design automation is a category of software tools for designing electronic systems such as printed circuit boards and integrated circuits...
(EDA) for electrical engineering
Electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
and electronics
Electronics
Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...
, as of 2004, ranked third in the EDA industry it helped create. The company, founded in 1981, is headquartered in Wilsonville, Oregon
Wilsonville, Oregon
Wilsonville is a city primarily in Clackamas County, Oregon, United States. A portion of the northern section of the city is in Washington County. Originally founded as Boones Landing due to the Boones Ferry which crossed the Willamette River at the location, the community became Wilsonville in...
, and employs 4,000 people worldwide.
History
In 1981, the idea of computer-aided designComputer-aided design
Computer-aided design , also known as computer-aided design and drafting , is the use of computer technology for the process of design and design-documentation. Computer Aided Drafting describes the process of drafting with a computer...
for electronics as the foundation of a company occurred to several groups - those who founded Mentor, Valid Logic Systems
Valid Logic Systems
Valid Logic Systems was one of the first commercial EDA electronic design automation companies. It was founded in the early 1980s, along with Daisy Systems Corporation and Mentor Graphics, collectively known as DMV....
, and Daisy Systems
Daisy Systems
Daisy Systems Corporation incorporated in 1981 in Mountain View, California, was a computer-aided engineering, CAE, company, a pioneer in the Electronic design automation industry....
. One of the main distinctions between these groups was that the founding engineers of Mentor, whose backgrounds were in software development
Software development
Software development is the development of a software product...
at Tektronix
Tektronix
Tektronix, Inc. is an American company best known for its test and measurement equipment such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and video and mobile test protocol equipment. In November 2007, Tektronix became a subsidiary of Danaher Corporation....
, ruled out designing and manufacturing proprietary computers to run their software applications. They felt that hardware
Hardware
Hardware is a general term for equipment such as keys, locks, hinges, latches, handles, wire, chains, plumbing supplies, tools, utensils, cutlery and machine parts. Household hardware is typically sold in hardware stores....
was going to become a commodity owned by big computer companies, so instead they would select an existing computer system as the hardware platform for the Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) programs they would build.
By February 1981, most of the start-up team had been identified; by March, the three executive founders, Tom Bruggere
Tom Bruggere
Tom Bruggere is an entrepreneur and onetime candidate for the U.S. Senate in the U.S. state of Oregon. He founded the company Mentor Graphics and has been involved with several other startup companies....
, Gerry Langeler and Dave Moffenbeier had left Tektronix, and by May the business plan was complete. The first round of money, $1 million, came from Sutter Hill, Greylock, and Venrock Associates. The next round was $2 million from five venture capital firms, and in April 1983 a third round raised $7 million more. Mentor Graphics was one of the first companies to attract venture capital to Oregon.
Apollo Computer
Apollo Computer
Apollo Computer, Inc., founded 1980 in Chelmsford, Massachusetts by William Poduska and others, developed and produced Apollo/Domain workstations in the 1980s. Along with Symbolics and Sun Microsystems, Apollo was one of the first vendors of graphical workstations in the 1980s...
workstations were chosen as the initial hardware platform. Based in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, Apollo was less than a year old and had only announced itself to the public a few weeks before the founders of Mentor Graphics began their initial meetings.
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 for schematic capture, but ran simulation and other programs on larger computers such as the MicroVAX
MicroVAX
The MicroVAX was a family of low-end minicomputers developed and manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation . The first model, the MicroVAX I, was introduced in 1984...
.
After a frenzied development, the IDEA 1000 product was introduced at the 1982 Design Automation Conference
Design Automation Conference
The Design Automation Conference, or DAC, is a combination of a technical conference and a trade show, both specializing in electronic design automation....
, though in a suite and not on the floor.
By the time founder Bruggere ran for the U.S. Senate in 1996
United States Senate election in Oregon, 1996
The 1996 United States Senate election in Oregon was held on November 5, 1996 to select the U.S. Senator from the state of Oregon. Incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Mark Hatfield decided to retire after thirty years in the Senate...
, the company had grown to annual revenues of $384 million.
Mentor Graphics is a global company with product development being done in the USA, Europe, Japan, Pakistan, India and Egypt. In keeping with global trends in software development, the company has a substantial labor force in lower cost locations such as Pakistan, India, Poland, Hungary and Egypt.
James "Jim" Ready
James Ready
For the Ontarian dollar-beer, see James Ready James "Jim" Ready is a businessman and technologist. He is known within the Linux community for pioneering real-time embedded operating systems....
, one of the more colorful people in embedded system
Embedded system
An embedded system is a computer system designed for specific control functions within a larger system. often with real-time computing constraints. It is embedded as part of a complete device often including hardware and mechanical parts. By contrast, a general-purpose computer, such as a personal...
s, left Mentor in 1999 to form the embedded Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
company MontaVista
MontaVista
MontaVista Software is a software developer that develops embedded Linux system software, development tools, and related software. Its products are targeted at other corporations developing embedded systems such as automotive electronics, communications equipment, mobile phones, and other...
. Neil Henderson, a pioneer in the royalty-free, source provided market space, joined Mentor Graphics in 2002 with the acquisition of Accelerated Technology Inc. Stephen Mellor
Stephen J. Mellor
Stephen J. Mellor is a computer scientist, developer of the Shlaer-Mellor method and signatory to the Agile Manifesto.Together with Sally Shlaer he founded Project Technology in 1985. That company was acquired by Mentor Graphics in 2004....
, a leader in the UML space and co-originator of the Shlaer-Mellor
Shlaer-Mellor
The Shlaer-Mellor method, developed by Sally Shlaer and Stephen Mellor, is one of a number of object-oriented analysis / object-oriented design methods which arrived in the late 1980s in response to established weaknesses in the existing structured analysis and structured design techniques in...
design methodology, joined Mentor Graphics in 2004 with the acquisition of Project Technology.
As of 2011, Mentor's major competitors are Cadence Design Systems
Cadence Design Systems
Cadence Design Systems, Inc is an electronic design automation software and engineering services company, founded in 1988 by the merger of SDA Systems and ECAD, Inc...
, Synopsys
Synopsys
Synopsys, Inc. is one of the largest companies in the Electronic Design Automation industry. Synopsys' first and best-known product is Design Compiler, a logic-synthesis tool. Synopsys offers a wide range of other products used in the design of an application-specific integrated circuit...
and Magma Design Automation
Magma Design Automation
Magma Design Automation is a software company in the electronic design automation industry. The company was founded in 1997 and maintains headquarters in San Jose, California, with facilities throughout North America, Europe, Japan, Asia and India....
.
In June 2008, Cadence Design Systems
Cadence Design Systems
Cadence Design Systems, Inc is an electronic design automation software and engineering services company, founded in 1988 by the merger of SDA Systems and ECAD, Inc...
offered to acquire Mentor Graphics in a leveraged buyout
Leveraged buyout
A leveraged buyout occurs when an investor, typically financial sponsor, acquires a controlling interest in a company's equity and where a significant percentage of the purchase price is financed through leverage...
. 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. Mentor acquired Flomerics Group plc for $60 million in cash in October 2008, and in August 2009, Mentor completed the acquisition of silicon manufacturing testing company LogicVision
LogicVision
LogicVision, Inc. was an electronic design automation company, offering chip, board and system-level Design for Test solutions and support to ASIC vendors based in San Jose, California, United States. Founded in 1992, it was acquired by Mentor Graphics in 2009. Their embedded test, BIST and yield...
for $13 million in an all stock deal. Mentor completed the acquisition of Valor Computerized Systems in March 2010 in a cash and stock deal valued at $50 million.
On 22 February 2011, Carl Icahn
Carl Icahn
Carl Celian Icahn is an American business magnate and investor.-Biography:Icahn was raised in Far Rockaway, Queens, New York City, where he attended Far Rockaway High School. His father was a cantor, his mother was a schoolteacher...
, an activist investor, made an offer to buy the company for about $1.86 billion in cash in a move to push other suitors to declare themselves.
Management
As of January 2011, Walden C. Rhines is the company's chairman of the board and chief executive officerChief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...
. He started as CEO in October 1993. Gregory K. Hinckley serves as the president of the corporation and has been a corporate officer since January 1997.
Products
- Electronic design automationElectronic design automationElectronic design automation is a category of software tools for designing electronic systems such as printed circuit boards and integrated circuits...
for- Integrated circuit layoutIntegrated circuit layoutIntegrated circuit layout, also known IC layout, 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 semiconductor layers that make up the components of the integrated circuit.When...
full-custom and SDL tools such as IC Station - IC place and routePlace and routePlace and route 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, placement, involves deciding where to place all electronic components, circuitry,...
tool: Olympus-SoC - IC Verification tools such as Calibre nmDRC, Calibre nmLVS, and Calibre xRC
- SchematicSchematicA schematic diagram represents the elements of a system using abstract, graphic symbols rather than realistic pictures. A schematic usually omits all details that are not relevant to the information the schematic is intended to convey, and may add unrealistic elements that aid comprehension...
editors for electronic schematicCircuit diagramA circuit diagram is a simplified conventional graphical representation of an electrical circuit...
s such as Design Architect IC or DxDesigner - Layout tools for printed circuit boardPrinted circuit boardA printed circuit board, or PCB, is used to mechanically support and electrically connect electronic components using conductive pathways, tracks or signal traces etched from copper sheets laminated onto a non-conductive substrate. It is also referred to as printed wiring board or etched wiring...
s with programs such as PADS, Expedition Enterprise and Board Station - Component library management tools
- IP coreSemiconductor intellectual property coreIn electronic design a semiconductor intellectual property core, IP core, or IP block is a reusable unit of logic, cell, or chip layout design that is the intellectual property of one party. IP cores may be licensed to another party or can be owned and used by a single party alone...
s for ASIC and FPGA designs
- Integrated circuit layout
- Embedded systems Development
- Mentor Embedded Linux for Freescale's QorIQQorIQQorIQ is a brand of Power Architecture-based communications microprocessors from Freescale. It is the evolutionary step from the PowerQUICC platform and will be built around one or more Power Architecture e500mc cores and come in five different product platforms, P1, P2, P3, P4 and P5, segmented...
and PowerQUICCPowerQUICCPowerQUICC is the name for several Power Architecture based microcontrollers from Freescale Semiconductor. They are built around one or more PowerPC cores and the QUICC Engine which is a separate RISC core specialized in such tasks such as I/O, communications, ATM, security acceleration, networking...
processors - Real-time operating systemReal-time operating systemA real-time operating system is an operating system intended to serve real-time application requests.A key characteristic of a RTOS is the level of its consistency concerning the amount of time it takes to accept and complete an application's task; the variability is jitter...
s- Nucleus OSNucleus RTOSNucleus OS is a real-time operating system and toolset created by the Embedded Systems Division of Mentor Graphics for various central processing unit platforms. Nucleus OS is an embedded software solution and is in an estimated 2.11 billion devices worldwide.Development is typically done on a...
(acquired in 2002 when Mentor acquired Accelerated Technology, Inc.) - VRTX (acquired in 1995 when Mentor bought Microtec Research.)
- Nucleus OS
- Development Tools:
- Sourcery CodeBench and Sourcery GNU toolchains (acquired in 2010 when Mentor acquired CodeSourcery)
- EDGE Developer Suite - Embedded development tools IDE (compilers, debugger, profiler, project manager)
- EDGE SimTest - Virtual Prototyping, simulation and testing for embedded solutions
- Inflexion UI - (Next Device was acquired by Mentor in 2006.)
- xtUMLExecutable UMLExecutable UML, often abbreviated to xtUML or xUML, "is a single language in the UML family, designed to define the semantics of subject matters precisely." Executable UML is the evolution of the Shlaer-Mellor method to UML...
Design Tools: BridgePoint (acquired in a 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
- Mentor Embedded Linux for Freescale's QorIQ
- FPGA synthesis tools
- Precision synthesis - Advanced RTL & physical synthesis for FPGAs
- High-level synthesisHigh-level synthesisHigh-level synthesis , sometimes referred to as C synthesis, electronic system level synthesis, algorithmic synthesis, or behavioral synthesis, is an automated design process that interprets an algorithmic description of a desired behavior and creates hardware that implements that behavior. The...
tools- Catapult CCatapult CCatapult C Synthesis, a commercial electronic design automation product of Mentor Graphics, is a high-level synthesis tool, sometimes called algorithmic synthesis or ESL synthesis...
Synthesis for C++ to RTL synthesis
- Catapult C
- Electrical Systems, Cabling and HarnessCable HarnessA cable harness, also known as a wire harness, cable assembly, wiring assembly or wiring loom,is a string of cables and/or wires which transmit informational signals or operating currents...
design- CHS - 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.
- Logical Cable - LCable, a legacy wiring design tool.
- TransDesign - A first generation system for the automatic synthesis of wiring designs
- SimulationSimulationSimulation is the imitation of some real thing available, state of affairs, or process. The act of simulating something generally entails representing certain key characteristics or behaviours of a selected physical or abstract system....
tools for analog mixed-signal design- ModelSim is a popular hardware simulation and debug environment.
- QuestaSim is a Simulator with a few additional features over modelsim. QuestaSim is easily usable by anybody who has experience with ModelSim with no training necessary. The main difference between QuestaSim and Modelsim is that the graphics interface is improved for convenience; also, the simulator has built-in support for systemVerilog and does not require an additional software license key as compared with Modelsim.
- Eldo is a high performance SPICESPICESPICE is a general-purpose, open source analog electronic circuit simulator.It is a powerful program that is used in integrated circuit and board-level design to check the integrity of circuit designs and to predict circuit behavior.- Introduction :Unlike board-level designs composed of discrete...
simulator - SystemVision is a virtual lab for mechatronic system design and analysis
- ADiTAditAn adit is an entrance to an underground mine which is horizontal or nearly horizontal, by which the mine can be entered, drained of water, and ventilated.-Construction:...
is a fast SPICE simulator - Questa ADMS is a mixed-signal verification tool
- Falcon FrameworkFalcon FrameworkThe Falcon Framework 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 Framework was written in C++ and was portable to other platforms, notably Unix.The Falcon...
a software application frameworkApplication frameworkIn computer programming, an application framework consists of a software framework used by software developers to implement the standard structure of an application for a specific development environment ....
for Apollo/DomainApollo/DomainApollo/Domain was a range of workstations developed and produced by Apollo Computer from circa 1980 to 1989. The machines were built around the Motorola 68k family of processors, except for the DN10000, which had from one to four of Apollo's RISC processors, named PRISM.-Operating system:The...
and UnixUnixUnix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
- AMPLE a scripting language for the Falcon Framework
- Mechanical Analysis Division (formed from the acquisition of Flomerics)
- Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer tools:
- FloTHERM is a Computational Fluid Dynamics tool dedicated to Electronics Cooling using parameterized ‘SmartParts’ for common electronic components such as fans, heatsinks, IC packages, etc.
- FloEFD is a ‘design concurrent’ CFD tool for use in early-stage product design and is embedded within popular MCAD systems such as Solidworks, Creo Elements/Pro, CATIA V5 and Siemens NX.
- Thermal Characterization and Thermal Interface Material (TIM) Measurement equipment:
- T3Ster is a hardware product that embodies a smart implementation of the JEDEC JESD51-1 standard for IC package thermal characterization and is compliant with JESD51-14 for Rth-JC measurement
- TERALED provides full 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.
- Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer tools:
SoC emulation/acceleration - Veloce products family enables SoC emulation and best transaction based acceleration.