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Siemens EDA is 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 electronic systems such as integrated circuits and printed circuit boards. The tools work together ...
(EDA)
multinational corporation A multinational company (MNC), also referred to as a multinational enterprise (MNE), a transnational enterprise (TNE), a transnational corporation (TNC), an international corporation or a stateless corporation with subtle but contrasting senses, i ...
for electrical engineering and
electronics The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...
, headquartered in Wilsonville,
Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idah ...
. Founded in 1981 as Mentor Graphics, the company was acquired by Siemens in 2017. The company distributes products that assist in
electronic design automation Electronic design automation (EDA), also referred to as electronic computer-aided design (ECAD), is a category of software tools for designing electronic systems such as integrated circuits and printed circuit boards. The tools work together ...
, simulation tools for analog mixed-signal design, VPN solutions, and
fluid dynamics In physics and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids—liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including '' aerodynamics'' (the study of air and other gases in motion) ...
and heat transfer tools. The company leveraged Apollo Computer workstations to differentiate itself within the computer-aided engineering (CAE) market with its
software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...
and hardware.


History

Siemens EDA was founded as Mentor Graphics in 1981 by
Tom Bruggere Tom Bruggere (born February 18, 1946 in Berkeley, California) is an American entrepreneur and onetime candidate for the U.S. Senate in the state of Oregon. He founded the company Mentor Graphics and has been involved with several other startup co ...
, Gerry Langeler, and Dave Moffenbeier, all formerly of Tektronix. The company raised $55 million in funding through an initial public offering in 1984. Mentor initially wrote software that ran only in
Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...
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. After a frenzied development, the IDEA 1000 product was introduced at the 1982
Design Automation Conference The Design Automation Conference, or DAC, is an annual event, a combination of a technical conference and a trade show, both specializing in electronic design automation (EDA). DAC is the oldest and largest conference in EDA, started in 1964. ...
, though in a suite and not on the floor. Mentor Graphics was purchased by Siemens in 2017. The name was retired in 2021 and renamed Siemens EDA.


Acquisitions


Timeline


Related

* 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. *In February 2011, activist investor Carl Icahn 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 Siemens 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. 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 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 board A printed circuit board (PCB; also printed wiring board or PWB) is a medium used in electrical and electronic engineering to connect electronic components to one another in a controlled manner. It takes the form of a laminated sandwich str ...
s with programs such as ''PADS'', ''Xpedition Layout'', ''HyperLynx'' and ''Valor NPI'' *Component library management tools * IP cores for ASIC and FPGA designs


Embedded systems

*Mentor Embedded Linux for ARM, MIPS, Power, and x86 architecture processors * Real-time operating systems: **
Nucleus OS Nucleus RTOS is a real-time operating system (RTOS) produced by the Embedded Software Division of Mentor Graphics, a Siemens Business, supporting 32-bit computing, 32- and 64-bit computing, 64-bit embedded system platforms. The operating system (O ...
(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 **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 Precision, precise or precisely may refer to: Science, and technology, and mathematics Mathematics and computing (general) * Accuracy and precision, measurement deviation from true value and its scatter * Significant figures, the number of digit ...
- 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

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


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 flows. Computers are used to perform the calculations required to simulate t ...
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, heatsinks, and IC packages **Simcenter Flotherm XT is an
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. ...
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

* List of EDA companies * Comparison of EDA software


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 Electronics companies of the United States Siemens American subsidiaries of foreign companies