Mentor Graphics

Mentor Graphics
Public
Traded as NASDAQ: MENT
Industry EDA, Embedded Software
Founded 1981
Headquarters Wilsonville, Oregon,
United States
45°19′10″N 122°45′46″W / 45.31944°N 122.76278°W / 45.31944; -122.76278Coordinates: 45°19′10″N 122°45′46″W / 45.31944°N 122.76278°W / 45.31944; -122.76278
Products Nucleus OS, EDGE Developer Suite, ModelSim/QuestaSim, Calibre
Revenue Increase$1.09 billion USD (2013)[1]
Increase$138.7 million USD (2013)[1]
Total assets
  • Increase US$ 1.745284 billion (2013) [2]
  • Increase US$ 1.550675 billion (2012) [3]
Number of employees
5,220 (2014)[4]
Slogan EDA technology leader
Website mentor.com

Mentor Graphics, Inc is a US-based multinational corporation dealing in electronic design automation (EDA) for electrical engineering and electronics. In 2004 it was ranked third in the EDA industry it helped create. Founded in 1981, the company is headquartered in Wilsonville, Oregon, and employs roughly 5,200 people worldwide with annual revenues of around $1 billion.

History

In 1981, the idea of computer-aided design 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, Apollo was less than a year old and had only announced itself to the public a few weeks prior to when 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. 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.[5]

By the time founder Bruggere ran for the U.S. Senate in 1996, the company had grown to annual revenues of $384 million.[6]

Mentor Graphics is a global company with product development taking place 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 systems, 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 following the acquisition of Project Technology.

As of 2012, Mentor's major competitors are: Cadence Design Systems, Synopsys and Zuken.

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.[7] 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.[8] Mentor completed the acquisition of Valor Computerized Systems in March 2010 in a cash and stock deal valued at $50 million.[9]

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.

Management

Walden C. Rhines is the company's chairman of the board and chief executive officer. 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

Entrance to company headquarters

Mentor Graphics distributes the following tools:

The Veloce product family enables SoC emulation and transaction-based acceleration.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Siemers, Erik (March 1, 2013). "Mentor Graphics broke sales record in '12, plans to do it again in '13". Portland Business Journal. Retrieved 3 March 2013.
  2. "MENTOR GRAPHICS CORP 2013 Q3 Quarterly Report Form (10-Q)" (XBRL). United States Securities and Exchange Commission. December 4, 2013.
  3. "MENTOR GRAPHICS CORP 2012 Annual Report Form (10-K)" (XBRL). United States Securities and Exchange Commission. March 15, 2013.
  4. "MENTOR GRAPHICS CORP 2014 Annual Report" (PDF). Retrieved 2014-07-04.
  5. The Mentor Graphics Story copyright 1988 Mentor Graphics Corporation
  6. JEFF MAPES (February 8, 1996). "Bruggere is latest to aim his wallet at political office". The Oregonian.
  7. "Cadence Withdraws". Retrieved 2008-09-18.
  8. "Mentor now owns LogicVision". Portland Business Journal. August 18, 2009. Retrieved 2009-08-22.
  9. "Mentor Graphics Acquires Valor Computerized Systems, Ltd.".
  10. https://www.mentor.com/company/news/mentor-acquires-mecel-picea-autosar-development-suite
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