Mentor Graphics Launches Emulation Services Worldwide

WILSONVILLE, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 21, 2001--Mentor Graphics Corporation (Nasdaq:MENT) today announced that it is extending its system verification consulting offering by providing emulation services to customers on a worldwide basis.

The offering allows customers to take advantage of the company's market-leading Meta emulation technology on a project basis, without making a large capital commitment.

The system verification services offered by Mentor Consulting provide customers with expertise to assist in the adoption and application of advanced functional verification methodologies. Mentor Consulting is now adding to these solutions the capabilities of accelerated verification and custom in-circuit emulation, through interactive or batch mode remote access to Mentor Graphics® emulation hardware. With accelerated verification, customers can take advantage of the significant performance improvements which hardware emulators offer over software-based simulation solutions. Additionally, customers can work with Mentor Consulting to develop full in-circuit system verification environments, including custom in-circuit test boards and functional test suites. These offerings ensure that Mentor Consulting can provide the fullest range of verification solutions to meet the needs of their customers.

``Customers continue to need the power of system-on-chip emulation to complete their difficult and complex system designs,'' said Eric Selosse, general manager of the Mentor Graphics Meta Systems division. ``By extending our offerings to include system verification with emulation services, we aim at making it easier for our customers worldwide to take advantage of our core technology to speed their time-to-market.''

These emulation services are based on the Mentor Graphics market-leading emulation products, featuring superior ease of use and system compile time. Ease-of-use and faster system compile time allow developers to more rapidly incorporate bug fixes into their designs and re-test them, significantly speeding time to market.

Mentor Graphics and Cadence Design Systems have been involved in extensive patent infringement litigation concerning their respective emulation systems. As a result of recent litigation, Mentor Graphics believes that offering remote access to its emulation technology, located exclusively outside the United States, will allow its customers to take advantage of Mentor's technology while adhering to existing court rulings. For example, Mentor Graphics has recently received the opinion of the International Trade Commission that remote access to certain Meta emulation systems located outside the United States would not violate existing ITC orders.

Pricing and Availability

The price of emulation services begins at $26,000 per week, which includes remote emulator access and one full-time consultant to assist in test execution. Prices for emulator access vary by the required hardware configuration. Additional consulting is also available for the development of test environments and for the analysis of results.

About Mentor Consulting

Mentor Consulting is the leader in worldwide semiconductor intellectual property services and maintenance and a provider of innovative solutions addressing today's design and verification challenges. The company's infrastructure and methodology solutions for System-on-Chip design, board process, system verification and design reuse are used worldwide by forward-looking electronics companies to optimize their design productivity and advance adoption of the latest industry design best practices. For more information on these and other services and products email Mentor Consulting at mentor_consulting@mentor.com or visit www.mentor.com/consulting.

About Meta Systems

Mentor Graphics Meta Systems business unit, based in Les Ulis, France, is a world leader in emulation. With the ability to handle designs of up to 26 million gates and compile times of up to one million gates per hour, the Meta Systems emulators provide fast iteration of the design, allowing more design errors to be caught in less time.

About Mentor Graphics

Mentor Graphics Corporation (Nasdaq:MENT) is a world leader in electronic hardware and software design solutions, providing products and consulting services for the world's most successful electronics and semiconductor companies. Established in 1981, the company reported revenues over the last 12 months of over $600 million and employs approximately 2,850 people worldwide. Corporate headquarters are located at 8005 S.W. Boeckman Road, Wilsonville, Oregon 97070-7777; Silicon Valley headquarters are located at 1001 Ridder Park Drive, San Jose, California 95131-2314. World Wide Web site: www.mentor.com.

Mentor Graphics is a registered trademark of Mentor Graphics Corporation. All other company or product names are the registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Contact:      Mentor Graphics
     Suzanne Graham, 503/685-7789
     suzanne_graham@mentor.com

or

     Benjamin Group/BSMG Worldwide
     Dean Rodgers, 503/283-8800
     dean_rodgers@benjamingroup.com