MENTOR GRAPHICS ACQUIRES 3SOFT

Adds System-Level Design Reuse to Mentor Graphics' Library Offering

WILSONVILLE, ORE. -- JANUARY 15, 1996 -- Mentor Graphics Corporation today
announced it has acquired 3Soft Corporation, a leading supplier of design
reuse technology for integrated circuit (IC) design. Addressing the design
reuse imperative within the company's Systems-On-Silicon (SOS) Initiative,
the acquisition will allow customers access to a library of
industry-standard IC building blocks that can be quickly combined into
complex, manufacturable systems, while augmenting Mentor Graphics'
existing capabilities in the growing IC design services market.

Under the terms of the agreement, 3Soft will function as an independent
operating unit, with headquarters remaining in San Jose, Calif. The
company will also maintain its independent research and engineering
organization in Guildford, UK.

"While the concept of design reuse has enjoyed support, actual
implementation has been hindered by documentation and integration
difficulties," said Glenn House, vice president and general manager of
Mentor Graphics' Silicon Systems Division. "By coupling 3Soft with our IC
Technology Center, Mentor Graphics can offer an attractive design reuse
package consisting of a wide range of complete, verified intellectual
property building blocks, proven physical implementation capabilities, and
a staff of experts that can take customers from architecture to
systems-on-silicon."

"This is the logical extension of our successful OpenDoor (sm) relationship
with Mentor Graphics," said Mark-Eric Jones, CEO of 3Soft Corp. "By
combining our proven MacroWare synthesizeable library with Mentor
Graphics' worldwide sales and support infrastructure, and the option of
Mentor Graphics' consulting services for detailed physical implementation
of the cores, we can reinforce our position as a primary provider of
industry-standard design reuse products for systems designers and
foundries."

3SOFT CORPORATION

3Soft is a pioneer in reusable intellectual property, and licensed its
first library in 1989. The company develops and markets the MacroWare
library of pre-designed and tested, industry-standard building blocks for
IC design to systems engineers and IC designers. This synthesizeable
library speeds the design process in most electronic design automation
tool environments and process technologies. The library consists of
approximately 50 cores, ranging from simple controllers of a few thousand
gates to more complex microcontroller or DSP cores of up to 40,000 gates.
The cores are available at the RTL level in both Verilog and VHDL
descriptions, and the collection was assembled to enable reuse of IC
designs. 3Soft's libraries have been proven through use in such companies
as Advanced Micro Devices, Ericsson, European Silicon Structures (ES2),
Fujitsu, Hitachi, NEC, Samsung, Texas Instruments, and VLSI Technology.
3Soft has IS09001 quality accreditation for the design and support of
synthesizeable megacells. 3Soft's World Wide Web site address is
http://www.3soft.com.

MENTOR GRAPHICS CORPORATION

Established in 1981, Mentor Graphics Corporation (NASDAQ:MENT) designs,
manufactures, markets and distributes electronic design automation (EDA)
software and provides professional services supporting its customers'
complete design environments. The company is a leader in worldwide EDA
sales, with revenues of $370,117,000 over the last reported 12 months.
Mentor Graphics is the first EDA vendor to win the STAR (Software
Technical Assistance Recognition) award, and the only EDA vendor to win
the award twice. The award is given annually by the Software Support
Professionals Association (SSPA) for service excellence. The company
currently employs approximately 2,045 people worldwide. In addition to its
corporate offices, Mentor Graphics has sales, support, software
development and professional services offices worldwide. The company's
headquarters are located at 8005 S.W. Boeckman Road, Wilsonville, Oregon
97070-7777.
 
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