> Now it's a death watch to see out of: Aprio, ClearShape, Ponte, Brion,
> Pyxis, Takumi, Nannor, Blaze DFM, Prediction, Invarium, Pulsic, SoftJin,
> Luminescent, Sagantec, KLA-Tencor, ChipMD, and LogicVision who is going to
> be let into one of these lifeboats and who's going to drown.
>
>     - from http://www.deepchip.com/wiretap/061003.html


I just heard an unsubstantiated rumor that Blaze DFM and Aprio are merging
with Blaze being the life raft.  (I'm running this story because the person
who told me this has been an historically reliable source.)  This source
hinted that Cadence might have been in on the bidding for Aprio because the
older OPC tools that Cadence had picked up from ASML are not catching on too
well with the Cadence customers.  Got no news as to whether or not Synopsys
or Mentor was involved in the bidding.  The impression I got from the source
was this is a zero dollar bailout merger of Aprio; not one of those big
money Brion buyouts of Aprio (i.e. if Cadence/Synopsys/Mentor were bidding,
it was for small amounts, because Aprio chose the no money Blaze deal.)

For the bigwigs, the dirt is that Clive Wu and Mark Fournival on the Aprio
side are joining Blaze as CTO and sales; while Jacob Jacobsson and Dave Reed
from the Blaze side appear to be remaining as Blaze's CEO and marketing.

(I haven't heard any scuttlebutt about what's going on for Mike Gianfagna,
the former CEO of Aprio.  He's Mr. Integrity in my book.  When the going got
tough at Aprio, Mike laid himself off!  Talk about noble.  I can't think of
any other EDA CEO who would make such a sacrifice for his company.)

As for the everyday working grunts, the scoop is none of the Aprio guys who
were laid off 2 months ago last December will be getting their old jobs back;
but all of the current Blaze folks will get to keep their current jobs.

It'll be interesting to see which of the 9 tools from the 2 companies survive
this rumored Blaze/Aprio merger.  I'm taking bets.

     Blaze MO (leakage power)
     Blaze IF (CMP fill)

     Halo-OPC (OPC)
     Halo-iOPC (incremental OPC)
     Halo-Fix (fixes the output of other 3rd party OPC tools)
     Halo-Quest (designer's litho hotspot predictor)
     Halo-Sim (litho sim)
     Halo-Cal (litho model calibrator)
     Halo-View (layout viewer)

My money's on Blaze staying loyal to their own "MO" and "IF" products plus
Aprio's Halo-OPC and perhaps Halo-Sim.  Anyone want to take the other side
of this wager?

I've also heard that Blaze has picked up another $10 million in VC funding
from Lightspeed and El Dorado Ventures.  Life's good for Blaze (for now).