Accelerated Technology's Nucleus EDGE Next Generation Development Environment Ushers In New Era of Eclipse Platform Use.

MOBILE, Ala. -- Accelerated Technology(R), the Embedded Systems Division of Mentor Graphics Corporation (Nasdaq:MENT), today announced its Nucleus(R) EDGE software development environment based on Eclipse, the open platform rapidly emerging as a standard for the embedded systems industry. The Nucleus EDGE software provides developers with a new, advanced embedded tool suite under Eclipse, that allows them to build, compile, debug and deploy their embedded applications more quickly and easily.

Comprising years of technology development, the Nucleus EDGE environment provides a suite of plug-ins to Eclipse. The Nucleus EDGE environment gives embedded developers tighter tool integration, total control over the quality and stability of their applications, full control of release cycles, shorter learning curves and a common platform with desktop tools.

The Nucleus EDGE software contains an advanced project manager, complete with an editor and builder, that helps users automate their build process. Developers can now set up one or more build environments by specifying the compiler and build options, giving total control over multiple projects and allowing for quick and easy revisions of their embedded systems.

Accelerated Technology has incorporated the best features of both the XRAY Debugger and the code/lab(R) Debug software to create a powerful new debugging tool in the Nucleus EDGE software environment. Adhering to the Eclipse debug paradigm, and hence offering ultimate openness, the Nucleus EDGE software provides a number of debugging environments. For example, using host-based debugging, software developers can experiment by running an application on the host machine before the final hardware is available or even decided upon. This allows the software developer to start coding earlier in the development cycle. Instruction set simulation and on-chip debugging via JTAG then allows users to run their "real" optimized embedded code from the same environment.

The Nucleus EDGE software also provides all the basic execution and memory control, plus advanced debugging features such as run-mode debug and kernel awareness when using a real-time operating system (RTOS). It also provides real-time trace, profiling, performance analysis, and code coverage for doing sophisticated code analysis. Additionally, the Nucleus EDGE software offers embedded developers true multi-core debugging, allowing them to fully debug their complete embedded system, whether small or complex.

"Embedded developers are quickly embracing Eclipse as the open platform of choice," said Robert Day, director of marketing, Accelerated Technology Division, Mentor Graphics. "The use of Eclipse with the advanced Nucleus EDGE software environment provides the best in terms of embedded technology, support and flexibility for our customers and the growing embedded market."

"Standards efforts improve opportunities for all market participants and create more avenues for growth. The availability of products written to published specifications will undoubtedly help to increase adoption rates and ease the application development and integration process," said Daya Nadamuni, principal analyst, Gartner, Inc. "Open source development environments such as Eclipse, provide a necessary framework for embedded software tools which allow developers to invoke necessary tools within a unified environment, and to become more productive in the process."

The first release of the Nucleus EDGE software is for the ARM7, ARM9 and XScale processor cores on Windows. The Nucleus EDGE software initially supports the ARM GNU, RedHat GNU and ARM RealView C and C++ compilers. MinGW, a compiler for Windows, is also provided for use with the host-based debugging feature, giving basic prototyping of applications on Windows.

Pricing and Availability

The Nucleus embedded software is sold in source code format and without royalty fees. Licenses for the Nucleus EDGE software begin at U.S. $3,000 per seat. For more information, please contact Accelerated Technology at 800-468-6853 or [e-mail].

About Mentor Graphics

Mentor Graphics Corporation (Nasdaq:MENT) is a world leader in electronic hardware and software design solutions, providing products, consulting services and award-winning support for the world's most successful electronics and semiconductor companies. Established in 1981, the company reported revenues over the last 12 months of about $675 million and employs approximately 3,800 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: http://www.mentor.com/.

Accelerated Technology, the Embedded Systems Division of Mentor Graphics Corporation, is located in Mobile, Alabama with sales offices and distributors worldwide. By providing embedded systems developers with a focus on service, well-documented source code and industry-leading non-royalty-based Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOS) software including modeling software, prototyping tools, kernels, middleware and development tools. AT's suite of products shorten time-to-market and provide a complete solution for engineers. For more information, please visit www.acceleratedtechnology.com or email us at [e-mail].

Mentor Graphics, Accelerated Technology, code/lab, and Nucleus are registered trademarks of Mentor Graphics Corporation. All other company or product names are the registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners.

Note to Editors: In the product name code/lab, the forward slash should be a pipe symbol.