>  rumor: Wally Rhines, CEO of Mentor, is secretly cheering on Synopsys
>         in the Magma lawsuit but only so it financially wounds Magma
>         enough so Mentor can acquire Magma (sort of like how the Cadence
>         lawsuit wounded Avanti enough to make it acquirable to Synopsys.)
>
>         As a fallback position, if Magma survives the lawsuit intact,
>         Mentor plans to acquire Sierra.  Mentor is already working
>         closely with Sierra to prepare for this contingency.
>
>             - from http://www.deepchip.com/gadfly/gad083006.html


TUES, MAY 15TH -- Heads-up!  The rumor mill is going nuts buzzing that Mentor
has just acquired Sierra for some undisclosed amount of money -- exactly as
was predicted in this Industry Gadfly column from 9 months ago!  (See the
last paragraph above.)

And although lots of people are gossiping about this, no seems to have a good
fix as to whether it was a "real money" buy or a "mercy killing" fire sale.

Naturally, I plan to call both Mentor and Sierra about this sale rumor; but I
don't expect more than the usual "We can neither confirm nor deny..."

It's funny how things are opening up now that the Synopsys-Magma lawsuit has
finally been resolved!  It's almost like everyone is back to the good olde
business of EDA again.  :)

         ----    ----    ----    ----    ----    ----   ----

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 even in the ballpark, my congrats will have
to go to the Sierra folks for being snapped up in a "real money" acquisition.

Oddly, if it's true, a number of the other smaller, even unrelated start-ups
will also cheer because to them any merger that is not a mercy killing is a
victory for the entire EDA ecosystem these days.

Mind you, officially this is all idle speculation until the Mentor and/or
Sierra people actually confirm and/or deny it.

         ----    ----    ----    ----    ----    ----   ----

WED, MAY 16TH, 4:31 PM -- I just had another unapproved anonymous source
confirm the alledged $100 million acquisition price plus:

    Mentor bought Sierra NOT just because they are a routing company, but
    because routing at/below 45 nm must include DFM/litho-awareness.  This
    is what Mentor brings to the table and it will let them differentiate
    themselves as they move into the routing marketing.  Mentor knows that
    Cadence and Magma don't have these DFM components - only Synopsys does!

And again, nobody has heard anything from neither Mentor nor Sierra on any
of these widely circulating rumors!  What are they waiting for?  DAC???   :)

         ----    ----    ----    ----    ----    ----   ----

WED, MAY 16TH, 5:59 PM -- Got yet another source.  This time the number they
heard was $95 million on a company with revenues of only $5 million.  "How
they got that type of multiplier, I don't know," he said.  "God bless'em!"