Cre8Ventures donates £2.5M of EDA software to Imperial College London

Newbury, UK, August 1^st, 2007  –  Cre8Ventures, the start-up focused support vehicle for Mentor Graphics (Nasdaq: MENT) to assist European electronics start-ups, today announced the donation of electronic design software worth £2.5 million to the Computer Architecture Research Group of Imperial College London.

Commented Oskar Mencer, EPSRC Advanced Fellow and head of the Computer Architecture Research Group at Imperial College: " We are excited to have been selected by Cre8Ventures as the London hub for academic use of Mentor Graphics EDA tools. The Cre8Ventures model for innovation provides a tremendous opportunity for research at Imperial to combine state-of-the-art electronic design automation tools with EPSRC funded projects. Cre8Ventures’ support will enable us to keep our research highly relevant to current challenges in industry.”

With the donation of these high end design tools research staff and students of Imperial College will be able to accelerate their development of state-of-the-art electronics. The donation includes software for the entire spectrum of design and verification from systems-on-chip to printed circuit boards to embedded software.

Said Carson Bradbury, European Director of Cre8Ventures: “The UK gene pool of entrepreneurial talent and excellence in fields such as mixed signal design and high performance computing is not being adequately fed. The Institute of Engineering and Technology's annual skills survey revealed that businesses are turning to India, China, South Africa and elsewhere to plug the skills gap. If the UK is to be competitive then academic teaching and research centres such as Imperial must also have unhindered access to the high end design tools used by the major electronics companies who will subsequently capitalise on their research and hire their graduates. Cre8Ventures is a passionate believer in UK electronic engineering and we are doing whatever we can to support those who push UK talent onto the world stage.”
 

About Computer Architecture Research Group, Imperial College London
Imperial College London - one of the top 10 universities worldwide as ranked in the 2006 Times Higher Education Supplement University Rankings - is a science-based institution with a reputation for excellence in teaching and research that attracts 11,500 students and 6,000 staff of the highest international quality.

Innovative research at the College explores the interface between science, medicine, engineering and management and delivers practical solutions that improve quality of life and the environment - underpinned by a dynamic enterprise culture.

The Computer Architecture Research Group investigates a wide range of research topics around the theory and practice, interaction of hardware and software systems with the objective of increasing computational speed while decreasing power consumption. Research interests include computer architecture from embedded processors to supercomputers, parallel programming and parallel architectures, computer arithmetic, custom computing, VLSI, CAD, compilers, dynamic optimization, algorithms and programming methodologies.  www.imperial.ac.uk

About Cre8Ventures and Mentor Graphics
Cre8Ventures, the start-up focused support vehicle for Mentor Graphics, accelerates electronic design start-ups’ ability to turn ideas into innovative products and offers a private funding syndicate of serial entrepreneurs to the fabless semiconductor industry.
Aiding the mission is the early identification of research that could be commercialized, Cre8Ventures partners with centre's of excellence at leading universities to connect researchers with the early stage startup process.  www.Cre8Ventures.com

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 over $800 million and employs approximately 4,250 people worldwide. Corporate headquarters are located at 8005 S.W. Boeckman Road, Wilsonville, Oregon 97070-7777.  www.mentor.com 

Mentor Graphics is a registered trademark and Cre8Ventures is a trademark of Mentor Graphics Corporation. All other company or product names are the registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners.