Mentor Graphics Announces Winners of its 19th Annual PCB Technology Leadership Awards

SAN JOSE, Calif., March 27, 2007 — Continuing its tradition of promoting and recognizing printed circuit board (PCB) designer excellence, Mentor Graphics Corporation (NASDAQ: MENT) announced the winners of its 19th Annual PCB Technology Leadership Awards at a banquet in coordination with PCB Design Conference West. The longest running competition of its kind for PCB designers in the EDA industry, this year the program attracted a record number of submissions from countries around the world, including Germany, Switzerland, China, Norway, Singapore, Austria, Canada, Korea, India, Israel, Portugal and the United Kingdom.

Industry experts judged entries in six categories representing a wide variety of fields: PC Computers and Peripherals; Consumer Electronics & Handhelds; Industrial Control, Instrumentation, Security & Medical; Military & Aerospace; Telecommunication Switches, Network Servers, Base Stations and Computer Mainframes; Transportation and Automotive; and Best Design Overall.

“Mentor Graphics is committed to the PCB designer community and our PCB Technology Leadership Awards program provides the opportunity to showcase the most innovative and talented designers worldwide,” said Henry Potts, vice president and general manager, systems design division, Mentor Graphics. “This year we saw a significant increase in the complexity of the submissions, with designs including high-speed, pin densities and layers, as well as use of advanced PCB fabrication like microvias. This further validates our investment in innovative design technologies thus enabling designers to overcome these challenges and deliver competitive electronic products, faster.”

This year’s panel of judges included: Pete Waddell, president, UP Media Group; Rick Hartley, industry consultant; David Wiens, director of product development, systems design division, Mentor Graphics; Happy T. Holden, senior technologist, systems design division, Mentor Graphics; Gary Ferrari, industry consultant.

“I am pleased to be involved in the judging of the EDA industry’s most prestigious PCB design competition. Over the past few years, I have seen exponential growth in both the quality and the complexity of the designs,” said Waddell. “It was both an honor and a challenge for me to help select the best designs, and the best designers, from around the world. The variety of submissions continues to impress me. Selecting the winners was a tough decision and in my opinion, everyone who entered was worthy of an award.”

"Winning the Military & Aerospace category in the industry's primary design competition is a tremendous honor," said Jayson Harames, PCB design engineer, L-3 Communications. "The hybrid switch module was one of my more complex designs, and makes this achievement even more meaningful to me."

This year’s Technology Leadership Awards winner for the Best Overall Design is the PCB design team from Siemens including: Mr. Helmut Riedl, Mr. Manfred Hofstatter, Mr. Michael Heider and Mr. Alfred Fuchs. The Siemens team’s winning entry is a reconfigurable FPGA-based signal processing platform on PCI-X. This design was created using Mentor Graphics Board Station RE, HyperLynx® and AutoTherm® tools.

Mentor Graphics will honor award winners at a banquet on Wednesday, March 28th at the Villa Montalvo Center in Saratoga, California.

2007 Technology Leadership Award Winners

Category: Best Overall Design
Company Name: Siemens
Designer/s: Helmut Riedl, Manfred Hofstatter, Michael Heider and Alfred Fuchs
Design Description: Reconfigurable FPGA-based signal processing platform

Category: Consumer Electronics & Handhelds
Company Name: Qualcomm Inc.
Designer/s: Larry Paul, George Cordero, Mahmoud Azartash, Anil Kukreja, Vinh Nguyen, Andy Green and Vivek Khushoo
Design Description: RUMI II Mobile Station Modem (MSM) chip emulation card

Category: Industrial Control, Instrumentation, Security & Medical
Company Name: Gage Applied Technologies Inc.
Designer/s: Chantal Holloway and Guillaume Turgeon
Design Description: Rabbit high-speed digitizers

Category: Military & Aerospace
Company Name: L-3 Communications
Designer/s: Jayson Harames and Rolf Thompson
Design Description: XFUSION Hybrid Switch Model (HSM) CCA

Category: PC Computers and Peripherals
Company Name: Fujitsu-Siemens
Designer/s: Andreas Schaefer, Markus Wicher and Harald Lugert
Design Description: Mainboard for business PCs

Category: Telecommunication Switches, Network Servers, Base Stations and Computer Mainframes
Company Name: IBM Zurich Research Laboratory
Designer/s: Peter Dill
Design Description: Controller board for a 64x64 port high performance optical switch

Category: Transportation and Automotive
Company Name: AVL List GmbH
Designer/s: Wolfgang Rinner, Josef Haring, Franz Summerauer and Alfred Poelzi
Design Description: Dual gigabit, Ethernet concentrator (high-speed communication and control interface)

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 4,250 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, Board Station, HyperLynx and AutoTherm 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:
Anne Cirkel
Mentor Graphics
503.685.7934
anne_cirkel@mentor.com

Suzanne Graham
Mentor Graphics
503.685.7789
suzanne_graham@mentor.com