Mentor Graphics boosts India investment

The company has two development centers in India, one at Noida near New Delhi, and another at Hyderabad in southern India. Mentor executives have said India would be a strategic research and development center for its global operations.

Mentor plans to make the Hyderabad operation a strategic technology center for its future design products. Called Mentor Graphics (India) Private Ltd., the facility will receive about $35 million of the additional $50 million earmarked for India, and will double in size by 2005, the company said. The center was formed in 1997 and currently employs about 100 staff members.

Mentor Graphics chairman and chief executive officer Walden Rhines said Mentor would invest in research and development to help boost internal growth at the design automation company. The Hyderabad center will focus on areas such as design tools for printed circuit boards, co-verification, design-for-test, intellectual property cores and embedded systems.

"We are clearly moving up the value-chain with a clear focus on new product research and development," said Srinivas Mandavilli, managing director of Mentor Graphics (India).