Bell Helicopter Standardizes on Mentor Graphics CHS to Cut Costs and Reduce Schedules for Helicopter Electrical System Design.

WILSONVILLE, Ore. -- Mentor Graphics Corporation (Nasdaq:MENT) announced today Bell Helicopter, a Textron Inc. company, has chosen to standardize on Mentor Graphics CHS[TM] flow for the design of helicopter electrical wiring systems. Bell will deploy CHS's powerful electrical system design, analysis, and integration software coupled with the CHS harness engineering and costing tools.

This front-to-back CHS flow provides Bell with significantly enhanced engineering productivity by automating time-consuming tasks and providing a means to virtually prototype the electrical architecture before it's built. CHS provides the ability to manage the intricacies of complex electrical information and represents the data in a form that promotes design reuse. Using CHS to bring electrical analysis earlier in the design process will allow Bell to validate that performance requirements and constraints are met early, thereby reducing the costs associated with test lab verification.

"Bell has over 50 years of flight innovation. As a premier aircraft development company, we are constantly improving our processes. Electrical design changes are a key source of engineering costs and are often in the development schedule critical path. CHS will enable our engineers to manage smart design data, to innovate faster with fewer obstacles. CHS is a key component to helping Bell Helicopter address corporate business objectives," stated Elaine Vaught, senior vice president engineering, Bell Helicopter.

Bell Helicopter's adoption of CHS harness engineering and costing tools means that manufacturing-oriented data can be readily shared throughout the design process, including to the harness suppliers. This not only encourages a design-for-manufacture outlook but also supports robust design change processes. The core strength of CHS is its ability to represent and manage the types of electrical design data and the associated complexity found in aerospace products. Its data-centric architecture, together with a comprehensive data model tuned to meet aerospace demands, manages the data in a form that allows management and reuse along the entire design process.

CHS allows the engineer to focus on design tasks by providing an "in-context" design environment. This allows the engineer to interact with the data in the context of a particular vehicle or configuration instead of incurring manual checking tasks to ensure complexity compliance. Throughout the design process CHS can share data with MCAD and PDM systems by using industry-standard protocols, thereby providing Bell Helicopter additional benefits across the enterprise.

"By adopting CHS, Bell Helicopter is taking a very strong position in the deployment of these modern technologies. The electrical system architecture is very complex in aircraft. By standardizing on CHS, Bell will achieve cost, reliability and time-to-market advantages in terms of part number control, design error reduction, and architectural optimization," said Martin O'Brien, general manager, Mentor's Integrated Electrical Systems Division.

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, semiconductor and automotive companies. Established in 1981, the company reported revenues over the last 12 months of about $800 million and employs approximately 4,250 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 is a registered trademark and CHS is a trademark of Mentor Graphics Corporation. All other company or product names are the registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners.