> WED, MAY 16TH, 12:25 PM -- Just received this email from another EDA person:
>
>     Hi John
> 
>     I heard that Mentor acquired Sierra for $100 million, $50 million up
>     front and $50 million as an earn out.  The first $50M seems to be
>     based on it being between 2X to 3X of revenue.
> 
>     I look forward to seeing you at DAC.
> 
>     Keep me anonymous.
> 
> If this new source is correct, or in the ballpark, my congrats will have to
> go to the Sierra folks for being snapped up in a "real money" acquisition.
>
>     - from http://www.deepchip.com/wiretap/070516.html


MON, JUNE 11TH, 9:51 AM -- Mentor just announced in an early morning press
conference that they actually are aquiring Sierra for $90 million in cash and
stock.  At DAC last week, Sierra said they booked $20 million in 2006, making
this acquisition a 4.5X multiple.  My congrats to the Sierra guys.

In the interviews, Wally Rhines, CEO of Mentor, is pitching that at around
65 nm or 45 nm there's a "fundamental discontinuity" for P&R -- and this is
where Sierra is going to catch Cadence/Synopsys/Magma with their pants down
-- sort of as a second reenactment of how Mentor Calibre mercilessly spanked
Cadence Dracula years ago in the DRC/LVS game.  Wally's story here is that
Sierra got the jump on its rivals because it could start from scratch with
new ideas like parallel processing and a better data structure -- while the
poor overworked R&D saps Cadence/Synopsys/Magma are still stuck trying to
make their crippled legacy P&R flows simply work at 65/45 nm.

Hype or not, it'll be interesting to see Mentor as a full P&R player now.

On a personal note, I'm laughing for a few reasons.  Yes, DeepChip had this
Sierra story a month ago *and* a year ago (see here).  I'm happy with that.

But the what goofs me the most was that 4 years ago, I was the guy who first
wrote about Mentor as "The Doughnut Company".  Man, were they pissed at me
for writing that back then!  In public panels and privately I got all sorts
of denials and scoldings for that irresponsible column.  But *NOW* it turns
out that Mentor's been working with Sierra for the past 18 months just to
fix this *exact* donut hole problem!  You're welcome, Wally.  :)