John Cooley at DeepChip.com reports that Siemens is committed to Mentor Graphics’ Calibre, Tessent, Veloce, Questa, and other semiconductor EDA tools; is planning future investments in Mentor’s EDA technologies; and is intending to compete aggressively with Synopsys and Cadence. Cooley’s report might assuage the fears of IC EDA users who, Cooley says, might fear a Cadence/Synopsys duopoly.
Siemens and Mentor announced last week that Siemens planned to acquire Mentor to expand its industrial software portfolio. And at the conclusion of an International Test Conference keynote address November 15, Wally Rhines, Mentor chairman and CEO, said of the acquisition, “We are absolutely delighted.” He called the two companies “totally complementary.”
As I noted at the time, one-third of Mentor’s business might seem a good fit for Siemens, but the remaining two-thirds relating to semiconductor design and test might not. However, Rhines said at the conclusion of his ITC keynote that Siemens views IC design as fuel for the electronic solutions Siemens will be offering.
Cooley’s report largely confirms this view from Siemens’s perspective. Cooley posts a letter from Chuck Grindstaff, executive chairman, Siemens PLM Software, as saying in part, “We want your readers and the Mentor customers to feel confident that we are committed to Mentor’s core technologies once the acquisition closes.” Grindstaff adds that he is looking forward to DAC next June in Austin.
Read the complete letter here.
See related article “Mentor touts Tessent tools to measure defect coverage, support debug.”
