A Wall Street Transcript Interview with Walden C. Rhines, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mentor Graphics Corporation (MENT)
67 WALL STREET, New York - October 4, 2013 - The Wall Street Transcript has just published its Semiconductors Report offering a timely review of the sector to serious investors and industry executives. This special feature contains expert industry commentary through in-depth interviews with public company CEOs, Equity Analysts and Money Managers. The full issue is available by calling (212) 952-7433 or via The Wall Street Transcript Online.
Topics covered: Cloud Computing - Mobile Device Consumer Demand - Enterprise Data Storage Demand - Energy Efficiency, Cloud Computing and Telecommunications
Companies include: Mentor Graphics Corp. (MENT) and many others.
In the following excerpt from the Semiconductors Report, the CEO of Mentor Graphics (MENT) discusses the outlook for his company and the sector:
TWST: Can you begin with a brief introduction to Mentor Graphics, including some highlights from the company's history and an overview of your current operations and product offerings?
Dr. Rhines: Mentor Graphics was founded in 1981. It's the oldest of what I refer to today as electronic design automation companies, and it was founded on the basic principle that to design complex electronics requires complex software, so that the complexity of the task can be reduced to something that humans can easily interact with and design, verify and deploy electronic systems.
It's had its history primarily in the design of chips, silicon integrated circuits for the majority of its revenue and even today, about 70% of the revenue is, in fact, for design software for integrated circuits, but a very rapidly growing and emerging area of electronic design automation or EDA is coming from people doing system designs, cars, planes, trains or more complex systems than simply integrated circuits.
TWST: Who are your customers, and how do they use your products?
Dr. Rhines: Mentor's customers are anyone who designs electronics. Whether they design chips, printed circuit boards or electronic systems, they probably have a need for some of our products. We have tens of thousands of customers today, and they tend to be cumulative; that is, the base continues to grow itself - once you start using them, you use more over time. Mentor got an early start that actually was with system companies, particularly military and aerospace, and then it grew into design of chips with the semiconductor industry. So today every major manufacturer or every designer of integrated circuits uses at least some of Mentor's products, and similarly for virtually every designer of electronic systems there is some portion of Mentor Graphics' software that's used.
TWST: In your last earnings release, you reported that bookings were up 70% compared to last year. To what factors do you attribute that growth, and to what extent do you expect it to continue?
For more of this interview and many others visit the Wall Street Transcript - a unique service for investors and industry researchers - providing fresh commentary and insight through verbatim interviews with CEOs, portfolio managers and research analysts. This special issue is available by calling (212) 952-7433 or via The Wall Street Transcript Online.
