Mentor Graphics Questa Functional Verification Platform Adopted by Siemens IT Solutions and Services PSE

WILSONVILLE, Ore., Nov. 30, 2007 - Mentor Graphics Corporation (Nasdaq: MENT) today announced that the Chip Design team at Siemens IT Solutions and Services PSE, publicly known as CES Design Services, has adopted an advanced verification flow based on Mentor’s Questa® functional verification platform, and the Questa Advanced Verification Methodology (AVM). The Questa platform and AVM allow CES Design Services to leverage the power of SystemVerilog to attain first pass silicon success.

The Questa platform and AVM ease the path to the extensive features of SystemVerilog enabling the CES Design Services team to take advantage of such things as constrained randomization, assertions, and functional coverage. With the support of Mentor’s team of verification experts, CES Design Services used the AVM to establish a functional verification process supporting automatic testbench creation, reuse, and first-pass success.

“We realized that the AVM would be very helpful because it provided a lot of pre-implemented, pre-verified code that we could use as a tool box,” stated Johann Notbauer, Director Chip Design at Siemens IT Solutions and Services PSE. “We chose Questa and the AVM because we saw that Questa, in terms of maturity and completeness of the SystemVerilog implementation, was in a strong position. In addition, the recently announced Open Verification Methodology (OVM) will make advanced verification with SystemVerilog nearly vendor-independent and, thus, a promising path to follow.”

“We are very pleased that the Questa platform and the AVM helped Siemens IT Solutions and Services PSE move to a more cohesive process of writing code and creating an optimal testbench verification environment,” said Robert Hum, vice president and general manager of Mentor Graphics Design Verification and Test division. “The combination of the Questa platform and the AMV enable the high level of productivity required by design teams to be successful.”

CES Design Services
Headquartered in Vienna, Austria, and with offices in the Slovak Republic and Romania, the CES Design Services business unit of Siemens IT Solutions and Services PSE provides professional services in the area of chip, electronics, and software development for a worldwide range of customers – from startup companies to leading manufacturers. The CES Design Services portfolio includes ASIC, FPGA, and SoC design, PCB layout, mechanical design as well as embedded software development and EDA services.

Questa Functional Verification Platform
The Questa functional verification platform combines high performance and high capacity with the most comprehensive verification capabilities in the industry. Assertion-based verification (ABV), testbench automation, and coverage-driven verification (CDV) are supported natively by the Questa platform’s high-performance assertion engine; a modern, high-performance constraint solver; and extensive functional coverage features, including verification management leveraging the Unified Coverage Database (UCDB). Verification of low power design functionality can be proven in an RTL environment with Power-Aware Functional Verification. This full set of advanced verification functionality is enabled by a flexible architecture that delivers unrivaled language and feature support in any design and verification flow.

AVM Open Source Verification Methodology
Questa AVM is the first true system-level-to-RTL verification methodology. Questa AVM integrates advanced verification techniques like constrained-random stimulus, functional coverage and assertions into a single transaction level modeling (TLM)-based framework implemented in SystemC and SystemVerilog. All AVM libraries are available in source code format in SystemC and SystemVerilog. The latest version of AVM includes improved management and reporting features, additional top-level environments for integrating 3rd-party IP and a revamped Verification Cookbook – the AVM end user manual – that includes new content on object-oriented programming and working with modules.

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 $800 million and employs approximately 4,200 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 and Questa are registered trademarks of Mentor Graphics Corporation. All other company or product names are the registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners.

For more information, please contact:
Carole Thurman
Mentor Graphics
503.685.4716
carole_thurman@mentor.com

Suzanne Graham
Mentor Graphics
503.685.7789
suzanne_graham@mentor.com