> 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


A little bird gave me a tip that yet another DFM start-up has just had its
CEO mysteriously disappear.  And sure enough, this tip turns out to be true.

Is seems that, just like Aprio, for some unannounced reason (there's no press
release nor any notice on the company web page) the founding CEO of Pyxis,
Naeem Zafar, is now unexpectedly missing and he's subsequently been replaced
by the Pyxis VP of Engineering, Joe Hutt.

It was not too long after this happened to Aprio that Aprio had sizable
layoffs and then it did its zero dollar mercy merger with Blaze DFM.  It was
within something like a 3 month timeline.

On the technology side, the Pyxis claim to fame was 

  "an IC router that can take in design rules and models from the manufacturing
   side and intelligently perform such tasks as wire spreading and metal fill
   during routing, rather than as a post-processing step."  (EEtimes 11/21/05)

The problem with such an approach for an EDA start-up is that it means it is
taking on the Big 4 (Cadence, Synopsys, Mentor, Magma) head-on.  It's not a
"nice" add-on tool that plays nicely in a Big 4 flow; it's an either-or sell.
That's tough sledding all around.  Users don't want to bail on their proven
Big 4 flows.  Too risky.  And not one of the Big 4 apparently wants to buy
something that's a complete replacement for their own cash cow P&R tools.  No
real financial upside, but lots of downside killing your own sales.  As an exit
strategy, if Mentor doesn't buy you (because they're the only saloon in town
who doesn't have a proprietary P&R tool to protect) you're screwed.  No matter
how enticing it may seem, never, NEVER draw on an inside straight.

My sympathies go to the Pyxis folks.