The unmistakable trend of merging mechanical CAD and CAE with Electronic Design Automation has been frequently highlighted in multiple blog entries in this space. The most recent entry appeared on September 19, 2008, entitled, “More EDA and MCAD Collaboration.”

On that date, the three-year cooperation between EDA vendor Mentor Graphics and MCAD vendor PTC was discussed, but in previous blog entries here, the pursuit of Flomerics by Mentor Graphics was described.

Today Mentor announced final completion of its acquisition of Flomerics Group PLC., a UK-based supplier of computational fluid dynamics analysis products.

Flomerics becomes the Mechanical Analysis Division of Mentor, headed by Gary Carter, former CEO of Flomerics, reporting to Henry Potts, vice president of Mentor Graphics and general manager of the Systems Design Division in Longmont, CO. This acquisition not only complements Mentor’s existing offerings in printed circuit board (PCB) systems design with advanced electronic cooling thermal analysis capabilities typically used by mechanical engineers, but broadens Mentor’s product offerings into the engineering fluid dynamics (EFD) market for mechanical computer aided design (CAD) analysis. The EFD products are targeted at mechanical designers versus requiring the expertise of a specialist.

“Thermal analysis of today’s high powered, compact electronic products requires ever increasing sophisticated conduction and convection thermal analysis, for both the full enclosure and PCBs, during the design process to meet reliability and time-to-market goals,” said Potts. 

"All of us at Flomerics look forward to working as part of the Mentor Graphics organization to grow our customer base in mechanical design as well as our electronics cooling markets," said Carter, general manager of Mentor’s Mechanical Analysis Division. "We believe that with Mentor's global strength and greater financial resources, the success and potential of Flomerics' technology, technical expertise, and customer relationships can be better cultivated and significantly enhanced."