Company Presentation: Mentor Graphics Corp.

"Considerations, Metrics and Measurements for Investment in EDA Tools"

EDA has evolved through a series of stages that have each brought new levels of productivity and challenges to the designer. SoC design has typically enjoyed much of the limelight as it pushes the design envelope with each shrinking semiconductor node. However, things have changed now in the worlds of FPGA and PCB design. FPGA fabrics are now being used to characterize some of the world's leading semiconductor processes. PCBs are back on the critical path of the design cycle due to massively increasing complexity and high performance design challenges.

Some would say that selecting the right EDA vendor and tool-set for FPGA and PCB design used to be relatively simple compared to SoC. That’s no longer the case. Designing programmable platform based devices and complex boards will soon involve many of the tools and team based methods that have until now been exclusive to SoC. EDA vendor considerations and measurements will need to go far beyond the traditional focus of the point tools.

As the only EDA vendor offering ASIC, FPGA and PCB solutions Mentor Graphics has the broadest insight into the requirement of all markets. The mutual success we enjoy with our customers is based on offering far more than just great technology. In this session we’ll look at the evolution of EDA and the associated wants and needs of designers. We’ll review some traditional metrics used by our customers but go further to discover how Mentor understands the vendor selection issues beyond the core product that have made us a leader in European EDA.

Presenter:

Wesley Ryder Technical Director Europe, Mentor Graphics Corp.