Asus to use Mentor Graphics' Expedition Series PCB Tools

Mentor Graphics today announced the sale of the Expedition Series PCB tools to ASUS. This sale includes Mentor's new product XtremePCB, which allows designers to work simultaneously on the same design from anywhere in the world. Also included is Mentor's PCB design definition solution, DxDesigner. Adoption of these technologies by ASUS will enable them to significantly reduce their design cycle times in the highly competitive PC motherboard industry.

"ASUS is striving to be number one in the areas of quality, speed, service, innovation, and cost-efficiency," stated Jason Cheng, VP of research and development, ASUS. "We feel that Mentor Graphics Expedition Series is the solution that will enable us to achieve that goal. In addition, it will allow ASUS to be even more efficient and to create a greater number of advanced designs faster and with better quality."

ASUS plans to use Expedition as a routing engine for their OEM partners, reducing push and shove times up to 30%, all without impacting the current flow. Most importantly, ASUS intends to use Expedition, Xtreme and DxDesigner exclusively for their OEM products.

With recent revenues reaching $7.7 billion in 2004, ASUS is the largest PC motherboard supplier in Asia. In 2004, ASUS shipped over 40 million motherboards, supplying 25% of the total number of desktop PCs sold. Time-to-market and optimized production costs are paramount in this industry, and the Expedition Series will enable ASUS to effectively design the most advanced products in today's highly competitive market.

"The sale of Expedition to ASUS further confirms Mentor Graphics' commitment to the Asian PC design market," stated Henry Potts, vice president and general manager of Mentor's Systems Design Division. "Expedition offers the most advanced technology in the world for the design of high-performance systems. With ASUS taking advantage of Mentor's superior product functionality, they can expect to see their design cycle times reduced significantly -- up to 40%."