Thursday, 4 November 2004 15:27 EST

MOBILE, Ala. – November 3, 2004 – Accelerated Technology®, a Mentor Graphics division (Nasdaq: MENT), today announced availability of the Nucleus® Cipher Suite, a collection of encryption ciphers or algorithms that can be used to secure any type of sensitive data. By implementing the Nucleus Cipher Suite software, developers can safely and securely store and transmit sensitive information thereby greatly enhancing the security of their products.

There is an increasing need to store and transfer data, such as credit card information, securely in order to maintain a healthy business economy and to protect the privacy of users. To address this need, the Nucleus Cipher Suite software provides developers with a number of different ciphers and tools including DES, 3DES, MD5, SHA, CAST-128, RSA signatures, random number and prime number generators to protect sensitive information. For example, the Nucleus Cipher Suite software allows users to encrypt sensitive data before saving it to a file system or before transmitting the information over a public network.

The Nucleus Cipher Suite software is provided as a standalone product for general purpose encryption. However, the Nucleus products that require encryption algorithms including the Nucleus Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) software, the Nucleus Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) software and the Nucleus Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software will be able to take advantage of this new product. Because the Nucleus Cipher Suite software provides a single location for the encryption ciphers, memory requirements are reduced when developers combine two or more of these Nucleus products. Instead of each product providing its own encryption algorithm, a copy in Nucleus SNMP software and a copy in Nucleus PPP software for example, there is only one copy, thus saving memory.

“Security technology can be difficult to understand and complicated to use. The number of security algorithms in use today and the various ways they can be used only makes things worse,” said Robert Day, director of marketing, Embedded Systems Division, Mentor Graphics. “The Nucleus Cipher Suite software was designed to provide a simple interface allowing many forms of encryption to be easily integrated into embedded applications.”

Pricing and Availability
The Nucleus embedded software is sold in source code format and without royalty fees. Licenses for the Nucleus Cipher Suite begin at U.S. $4,495 per seat. For more information, please contact Accelerated Technology at or .

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 $675 million and employs approximately 3,800 people worldwide. Corporate headquarters are located at 8005 S.W. Boeckman Road, Wilsonville, Oregon 97070-7777; Silicon Valley headquarters are located at 1001 Ridder Park Drive, San Jose, California 95131-2314. World Wide Web site: http://www.mentor.com/.