Accelerated Technology Acquires High-level Design Tools Company, Project Technology.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

Embedded Systems Conference San Francisco 2004

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 29, 2004

Accelerated Technology(R), the Embedded Systems Division of Mentor Graphics Corporation (Nasdaq:MENT), announced that Mentor Graphics has acquired Project Technology, a leading provider of executable and translatable Unified Modeling Language (UML) tools. The acquisition of Project Technology's tools places Accelerated Technology in the unique position of being the only embedded software provider with a complete design flow of products ranging from a high-level design tool to a full-embedded software development suite and real-time operating system (RTOS).

"We believe that the combination of the high-level executable and translatable modeling solution and the Nucleus(R) RTOS and development tools will change the way embedded developers design and build their products," said Neil Henderson, general manager of Accelerated Technology. "The productivity gains and reusability of designs will make this the de facto design paradigm of the future."

As the complexity of embedded systems applications increases and time to market decreases, a higher level of abstraction beyond current programming languages is required for embedded designers to produce their product on time and to specification. The acquisition of Project Technology adds the Nucleus BridgePoint(R) Development Suite, a sophisticated graphical design tool for embedded systems, to the already extensive RTOS offering from Accelerated Technology. The unique architecture of the Nucleus Bridgepoint product allows developers to build complete embedded systems directly from a high-level design.

"The move from C and C++ designs to a model driven architecture is starting to show order-of-magnitude productivity gains," said Stephen Mellor, founder of Project Technology and now chief scientist of Accelerated Technology. "It is the next evolutionary step for embedded designers and is seen as analogous to the shift from assembler to C."

The Nucleus BridgePoint product supports a four-phase process for building and verifying a complete embedded system using high-level design methods. A developer starts by building models of the system in the model construction phase. During the execution phase, the developer directly verifies the model's behavior with a client or expert. This is analogous to building and running code, but at a much higher level of abstraction.

After the behavior of the model has been verified, the design enters the model compilation phase during which it is automatically translated into C or C++ and any legacy code is combined with the resulting generated code. Finally, the model debugging phase allows for debugging of the "compiled" model while viewing the system from the model level. These last two steps are like compiling and debugging an embedded system, but one layer of abstraction higher.

The completion of these phases results in a comprehensive embedded system in C or C++. A final compile and build using Accelerated Technology's embedded development tools is all that is required to produce the target-specific executable image.

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 3,700 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, 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, AT's RTOS software shortens time-to-market and provides a complete solution for engineers. For more information, please visit www.acceleratedtechnology.com or email us at [e-mail].

Mentor Graphics, Accelerated Technology, BridgePoint 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.