The Week In Review: Feb. 25
Friday, February 25th, 2011Carl Icahn stepped up pressure on Mentor Graphics, offering $17 per share in cash for all outstanding shares. Mentor’s stock was trading above $15 a share last week and the company was weighing its options.
The stock could show some pop on its own. Mentor reported that revenues were up 30% in Q4 vs. the same period in 2009 and earnings were up 10% on a GAAP basis. On a non-GAAP basis, earnings were up a whopping 60%. For the year, revenues were up 14% and GAAP earnings were 25 cents a share, vs. a 23-cent loss in 2009.
Mentor threw its weight behind UVM 1.0, which is no surprise. Aside from the benefits of a standards-based verification methodology, it’s also a good competitive strategy.
Synopsys rolled out data converter IP for SMIC’s 65nm low-leakage process. The IP is aimed at battery-powered communications and digital TV devices.
Cadence won a couple of deals. Broadcom is using Cadence’s Palladium XP acceleration and emulation technology. And IMS CHIPS, based in Stuttgart, Germany, standardized on Cadence’s silicon realization technology for mixed-signal gate arrays.
MIPS inked a deal to distribute the OEM version of Imperas’ Open Virtual Platforms simulator, aka OVPsim, which will allow customers to develop instruction-accurate simulation for MIPS processor cores.