Continuing its commitment to open source development, Mentor Graphics Corporation (NASDAQ:MENT) today announced the newest release of its Yocto Project™ 1.3-compatible Mentor® Embedded Linux platform. With this release, Mentor Graphics furthers its commitment to provide embedded developers with solutions to harness the capabilities of open source technology and to create customized, yet commercially supported, embedded Linux platforms.

This new Mentor Embedded Linux release is updated to include:

• New or enhanced software recipes incorporating the latest stable open source technology
• Improved compatibility with Yocto Project 1.3 compatible BSPs and software layers
• Compatibility with a broad range of ARM, MIPS, Power, and x86 core devices from semiconductor vendors such as Broadcom, Freescale, Intel, and Texas Instruments

“As an advisory board member of the Yocto Project and participant in the OpenEmbedded community, Mentor is an important contributor for open source development,” said Amanda McPherson, vice president of marketing and developer services at The Linux Foundation. “Mentor’s expertise in open source tools and services, plus its partnership with key silicon vendors, helps developers build Linux-based embedded systems with ease and reliability, independent of hardware architecture.”

With this release of Mentor Embedded Linux, customers have new options for securing validated Board Support Packages (BSPs). In addition to the BSPs available from Mentor Graphics®, developers may also select from available open source community-created BSPs including Yocto Project-compatible BSPs and BSPs from semiconductor projects and board vendors. In either case Mentor Graphics will offer commercial integration, validation, and support ensuring that customers can utilize the best technology available for their hardware with the least risk of unexpected technical challenges. Mentor Embedded Linux also offers solutions for developers targeting customized hardware platforms where a standard off-the-shelf BSP is inappropriate.

The Mentor Embedded Linux platform release is integrated with the Mentor Sourcery™ CodeBench and Sourcery Analyzer tools. The Mentor Sourcery CodeBench professional-quality GNU toolchain is a complete development environment for embedded C/C++ development on the leading hardware architectures. The Sourcery Analyzer is a comprehensive system and application performance analysis tool that speeds performance analysis on multi-core systems with visualization of multiple data sources in synchronized timeline views. The Mentor Embedded Linux platform is pre-enabled with LTTng trace points facilitating seamless data transfer to Sourcery Analyzer for out-of-box system analysis.

The Yocto Project, established by The Linux Foundation, is an open source collaboration around templates, tools, and methods for creating custom Linux distributions. Yocto Project 1.3 improvements include a revised terminal interface for monitoring build operations, initial version of a utility for creating new BSP layers, and an enhanced checksum system for tracking when source modifications should trigger recipe rebuilds.

Mentor Graphics holds over 50 leadership positions including steering committee members, open source reviewers, and developers in open source software development projects, including important leadership roles in the GCC and GDB communities. In addition, Mentor is a contributor to open source GENIVI and AUTOSAR automotive standards for embedded software.

“The Linux Foundation’s Yocto Project is critical for the embedded development community and we are pleased to be one of the first embedded software companies to deliver our next-generation Linux platform supporting Yocto Project 1.3,” said Mark Mitchell, general manager for tools and open source, Mentor Graphics Embedded Software Division. “Our expertise in open source and our contributions to these industry bodies will assure that our customers can continue to develop customized Linux-based systems with greater efficiency and confidence.”

For more information on the Mentor Embedded Linux platform and to download the free PandaBoard and BeagleBoard Linux Kits, visit the website: http://go.mentor.com/linux.

The Mentor Graphics Embedded Software Division comprises the Mentor Embedded family of products and services, including embedded software intellectual property (IP), tools, and professional consultant services to help embedded developers and silicon partners optimize their products for design and cost efficiency. The Mentor Embedded team continues to lead the industry with involvement in the open source community, with Inflexion® 2D and 3D UI development, Sourcery open source tools, and Nucleus® RTOS solutions. More information on Mentor Embedded products and services can be found at www.mentor.com/embedded.

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 $1,015 million. Corporate headquarters are located at 8005 S.W. Boeckman Road, Wilsonville, Oregon 97070-7777. World Wide Web site: http://www.mentor.com/.

(Mentor, Mentor Graphics, Inflexion, and Nucleus are registered trademarks of Mentor Graphics Corporation. Sourcery is used under license from CodeSourcery, Inc. All other company or product names are the registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners).

The registered trademark Linux® is used pursuant to a sublicense from LMI, the exclusive licensee of Linus Torvalds, owner of the mark on a world-wide basis.