I couldn’t resist. Such a name. Redolent of east-coast upper-class. White shoes and croquet. But this man is the Chairman and CEO of Mentor Graphics, and what he had to say today was a telling indictment of the spurious strength in the chip biz. Mentor, of course, is a leading vendor of chip design software.

“This quarter saw significant year-over-year weakness in all notable product lines and in all regions. Book-to-bill was extremely weak and the company consumed substantial backlog.”

The crazy mo-mo chasing in the chip stocks is one of the most bizarre features of the bubble market. What will cause reality to set in?