Mentor Graphics Corporation announced that Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) www.koreaaero.com), a manufacturer of fixed and rotary wing aircraft, has been able to reduce significantly the time needed to design the electrical wiring system of its newest platform. The Korean Helicopter program is scheduled to first fly early in 2010. For this project KAI decided to use tools within Mentor’s CHS™ product family, with the objective of improving process efficiency for this complex task.

The development of this helicopter has reached an important milestone with the release of a complete set of electrical wiring designs, so valid comparisons can be made with previous methodologies. Specifically, KAI has achieved a 20% reduction in wiring system design time compared with their previous norms. KAI said, “CHS gives us a substantial productivity boost. Not only are the tools easy to use, they also provide superior automation and ensure a high level of data correctness, thus cutting the time needed to develop the very complicated interconnect wiring found on a modern helicopter. And we can extend our use of the tools to achieve yet more efficiency improvements, for example by exploiting CHS’s web-based data reporting capability.”

KAI used Mentor’s CHS Capital® Logic software, supplemented by CHS electrical simulation and 3D MCAD integration applications, to create several hundred detailed wiring schematics representing the new helicopter’s electrical system. Because the CHS product employs a highly data-centric paradigm, many design tasks — such as the management of objects shared across multiple schematics — can be significantly automated, reducing both design and validation time. Martin O’Brien, general manager of Mentor’s Integrated Electrical Systems Division, said, “KAI is a textbook example of an organization leveraging CHS’s technical power to achieve real business benefits. Wiring design often occurs late in a platform’s development cycle, so time savings have a genuine impact. As regulatory requirements relating to aerospace wiring become increasingly onerous, we expect more and more attention to be paid to this area.”

About Mentor Graphics

Mentor Graphics Corporation (NASDAQ: MENT) is a world leader in electronic hardware and software design solutions, providing products, consulting services and award-winning support for the world’s most successful electronics and semiconductor companies. Established in 1981, the company reported revenues over the last 12 months of about $800 million and employs approximately 4,425 people worldwide. Corporate headquarters are located at 8005 S.W. Boeckman Road, Wilsonville, Oregon 97070-7777. World Wide Web site: www.mentor.com/.