Mentor Graphics

Mentor Graphics is a US-based electronic design automation (EDA) multinational corporation for electrical engineering and electronics, headquartered in Wilsonville, Oregon. Founded in 1981, the company was acquired by Siemens in 2017 and is now known as Siemens EDA.
Mentor Graphics is noted for distributing products that assist in electronic design automation, simulation tools for analog mixed-signal design, VPN solutions, and fluid dynamics and heat transfer tools. The company leveraged Apollo Computer workstations to differentiate itself within the CAE market with its software and hardware.
History.
Mentor Graphics was founded in 1981 by Tom Bruggere, Gerry Langeler and Dave Moffenbeier. The first round of money, worth $1 million, came from Sutter Hill, Greylock, and Venrock Associates. The next round was $2 million from five venture capital firms, and in April 1983 a third round raised an additional $7 million. Mentor Graphics was one of the first companies to attract venture capital to Oregon.
Apollo Computer workstations were chosen as the initial hardware platform. Based in Chelmsford, Apollo was less than a year old and had only announced itself to the public a few weeks prior to when the founders of Mentor Graphics began their initial meetings.
When Mentor entered the CAE market the company had two technical differentiators: the first was the software - Mentor, Valid, and Daisy each had software with different strengths and weaknesses. The second, was the hardware - Mentor ran all programs on the Apollo workstation, while Daisy and Valid each built their own hardware. By the late 1980s, all EDA companies abandoned proprietary hardware in favor of workstations manufactured by companies such as Apollo and Sun Microsystems.
After a frenzied development, the IDEA 1000 product was introduced at the 1982 Design Automation Conference, though in a suite and not on the floor.
Locations.
Mentor product development was located in the US, Taiwan, Egypt, Poland, Hungary, Japan, France, Canada, Pakistan, UK, Armenia, India and Russia.
Notable persons.
James "Jim" Ready, left Mentor in 1999 to form the embedded Linux company MontaVista. Neil Henderson joined Mentor Graphics in 2002 with the acquisition of Accelerated Technology Inc. Stephen Mellor, a leader in the UML space and co-originator of the Shlaer-Mellor design methodology, joined Mentor Graphics in 2004 following the acquisition of Project Technology.
Management.
Walden C. Rhines was the company's chief executive officer and president following the acquisition by Siemens, until November 2018 when he became CEO Emeritus. Tony Hemmelgarn is now the president and CEO of Siemens Digital Industries Software, which includes the former Mentor product line.
Products.
Mentor distributes the following tools: