AISIN Standardizes on Mentor Graphics Volcano AUTOSAR Design Solutions

SAE World Congress, Detroit, Michigan, April 21st, 2015 - Mentor Graphics Corporation (NASDAQ: MENT) today announced that Aisin Seiki Co., Ltd. and its consolidated subsidiaries (hereinafter referred to as "AISIN"), a major automotive parts manufacturer in Japan, has standardized on the Mentor® Graphics Volcano™ VSx™ design tools to support the widespread adoption of an AUTOSAR-based design process across its network of automobile manufacturers.

AUTOSAR (AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture) is a fast-growing global standard for Electronic Control Unit (ECU) design and the announced implementation by AISIN will help to unify the manufacturer’s software development infrastructure across automotive system domains and facilities.  AUTOSAR is an open and standardized automotive software architecture jointly developed by automobile OEMs, suppliers, and tool developers. It allows both automotive engineers and suppliers of ECUs to achieve modularity and scalability of software with standardized interfaces, improving the ability to handle high-complexity designs.  AUTOSAR also encourages design re-use, and transferability of ECU design assets.

Adopting AUTOSAR will allow AISIN to focus on developing their core business – the development of high-quality and highly reliable ECUs for a range of in-vehicle functions.  One of the safety critical design areas is powertrain applications, and Mentor Graphics proven and successful experience in this area was one of the key reasons why AISIN selected Mentor as one of its key automotive vendors.  The Volcano tool suite includes system and network design, virtual validation, test, and embedded software for automotive systems using multiplexed communication networks such as CAN, LIN, Ethernet and FlexRay.  Specifically, AISIN is using Volcano VSTAR™ (BSW), Volcano VSA™ and Volcano VSB for its volume production.

Commenting on the decision by AISIN, Scot Morrison, general manager, Platform Solutions Business Unit, at Mentor Graphics Embedded Systems division stated, “AISIN has recognized the benefits of moving to a standard ECU design and development methodology, and we are delighted to welcome them as a Mentor Graphics customer. We’ll be working closely with them in their many global locations on the implementation, training, and migration from existing processes to the new AUTOSAR environment.” 

(Mentor Graphics and Mentor are registered trademarks and Volcano, Volcano VSx, Volcano VSTAR, and Volcano VSA  are trademarks of Mentor Graphics Corporation. All other company or product names are the registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owner.)