Mentor to invest $50 m in India
By siliconindia staff writer   |   Tuesday, 18 November 2003, 20:30 IST
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HYDERABAD: Mentor Graphics, a US-based Electronic Design Automation firm, has plans to invest $50 million in its Indian operations, which include development centers in Hyderabad and Noida, senior company officials said here on Monday. Speaking to reporters after inaugurating the company’s new office here, Mentor Graphics’ president Gregory Hinckley said the Wilsonville, Oregon-based company will be hiring another 100 software engineers at Noida and Hyderabad by the end of next year. “We have so far invested $10 million in our Indian operations,” said Srinivas Mandavilli, managing director of the Hyderabad R&D centre of Mentor Graphics (India). Hinckley said that for Mentor Graphics, which makes the software used to create electronic systems, Hyderabad was a key R&D centre. “We have been in Hyderabad since 1997, starting with about 30 engineers. Today we have 165 and this number will be growing in the next one year,” he said. “The reason we are here in India is because India has twice as many technical graduates as the US,” Hinckley said. Asked whether Mentor was able to find engineers in the highly sophisticated EDA space, Mandavilli said the company provided an intensive training program for its recruits.According to Richard J Decker, Mentor’s chief information officer, the Hyderabad centre was doing critical research work for the company. The centre had already filed two patent applications for its products, and is awaiting approval for them. Hinckley said the centres in Hyderabad and Noida played a critical role in designing printed circuit boards, emulation and and other EDA areas.

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