Actel and Mentor Graphics Expand Partnership.

WILSONVILLE, Ore. -- Mentor Graphics Corporation (NASDAQ:MENT) and Actel Corporation (NASDAQ:ACTL) today announced the signing of a new OEM agreement between the two companies, expanding the companies' existing technology and marketing partnership. With this agreement, Actel will provide the rich feature set of Precision([R]) Synthesis, Actel-edition, as part of the new Libero([R]) Integrated Development Environment (IDE) 7.3 Web download product bundle. In addition, Actel and Mentor Graphics will continue to cooperate to further improve tool integration, thereby increasing productivity and enhancing customer design success and quality of results (QoR).

"Our customers have greatly benefited from our existing ModelSim OEM agreement with Mentor, which makes accessible to them an industry-standard advanced FPGA verification environment," said Rich Brossart, vice president, product marketing at Actel. "Now, with the addition of Precision Synthesis to our Libero IDE, designers have the option of leveraging an industry-standard logic synthesis solution with advanced analysis tools and SystemVerilog support."

As a supplier of single-chip FPGAs, Actel addresses a wide variety of applications, including those requiring low power, security, reliability, live at power up and even radiation hardening. "We see Actel in many sophisticated applications, requiring engineers to push their designs to the maximum," said Simon Bloch, general manager, Mentor Graphics Design Creation and Synthesis Division. "These customers will need more than a push-button synthesis solution -- they need the superior capabilities of Precision Synthesis."

Precision Synthesis forms the centerpiece of Mentor Graphics FPGA flow with support for design creation, verification and PCB integration -- the industry's most comprehensive vendor-independent solution for FPGA design. With advanced support for ASIC prototyping (support for DesignWare([R]) libraries, SDC constraints, gated-clock handling, etc.) plus advanced implementation and optimization techniques such as automatic mapping and inferencing of dedicated DSP and RAM blocks, Precision Synthesis is uniquely suited to handle today's high-end FPGAs. In addition, Precision Synthesis features an award-winning design analysis capability, allowing designers to cross-probe between multiple views as well as perform interactive static timing for rapid "what-if" analyses. Precision Synthesis reduces design iterations, and enables faster, more predictable completion of designs, while delivering high quality of results (QoR).

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 over $750 million and employs approximately 4,100 people worldwide. Corporate headquarters are located at 8005 S.W. Boeckman Road, Wilsonville, Oregon 97070-7777. World Wide Web site: http://www.mentor.com/.

Mentor Graphics, Precision, and ModelSim are registered trademarks of Mentor Graphics Corporation. All other company or product names are the registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners.