> My apologies to the ClearShape guys if the Cadence private rumor is true;
> nobody ever bothers putting a new pool in the backyard of a house that
> they're about to sell.  RIP ClearShape acquisition.
>
>     - from http://www.deepchip.com/wiretap/070618.html


On DAC Monday, June 4th, the New York Times reported that two Wall Street
firms were rumored to be working towards taking Cadence private.

Exactly 2 weeks later, on Monday, June 18th, the New York Times reported
then that the private equity firms, Blackstone and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts,
were stalled in talks over what price to take Cadence private, plus:

  "Blackstone may already be troubled by another of its bets over the
   last year.  The firm and its partners agreed to pay $17.6 billion
   for Freescale Semiconductor, only to see that chip maker report
   lower sales in the first quarter of 2007."  (NYT 6/18/07)

Which, taken altogether, puts the kibosh on this whole Cadence-going-private
deal (at least for now).

Roughly during this same time, I was also reporting on the rumor that Cadence
was going to acquire ClearShape; but that this Cadence-going-private thing
had pretty much killed off any such acquisition.

Walking into DAC, ClearShape had just put out a press release that ST had
done some eval and bought them.  <yawn>.  It's not bad news, but it's not
uber-monster-big-stop-the-presses news because STmicroelectrics uses almost
everyone's EDA tools somewhere in its vast European chip design empire.

But I was floored when I saw the ClearShape TSMC press release this morning.

It said that TSMC had qualified ClearShape's InShape for the TSMC 45 nm DFM
Data Kit (DDK) and the TSMC Reference Flow 8.0.

  "We have now qualified InShape for all layers for 45 nm technology
   and included it in our Reference Flow 8.0 to deliver litho-aware
   routing to our customers," said Kuo Wu of TSMC.

That's waaaay cool for the ClearShape guys, but when you step back and see
the bigger picture you'll understand why I was floored.

You see, the new rumor I had heard was now that this private thing had fallen
through, Cadence had come back to the table about buying ClearShape.  As
I had written earlier when Cadence tried to discretely buy CommandCAD:

   "The second reason is that Cadence has been really quiet about the
    DFM front overall.  Wall Street doesn't like this.  Other than
    the Brion and ClearShape "partnerships" CDNS announced last October,
    2006, they've done very little.  This means they're buying their
    way in -- i.e. they're in catch-up mode and that Cadence knows they
    need to play in this DFM market against Mentor and Synopsys."

        - from http://www.deepchip.com/wiretap/070510.html

Cadence NEEDS to get legit quick in the DFM game or they'll be yesterday's
news in a few years.  Cadence needs a ClearShape.

The twist to this new rumor was that ClearShape had added a go-to-hell
deadline in their talks with Cadence.  I can understand.  One can only be
jilted so many times at the alter before one starts getting pissed.

The problem is I don't know exactly when that deadline is (or was.)

So, overall, IF the ClearShape deadline has NOT passed yet, this *public*
TSMC press release is a marry-me-NOW-or-die ultimatium from ClearShape with
an oh-you're-so-going-to-pay-me-big-bucks-for-your-screwing-around FU kicker
thrown in to Mike Fister because it's a *public* press release.

(There's absolutely no way ClearShape wouldn't have mentioned this TSMC news
to Cadence in their acquisition talks.  What's the real "news" here is that
ClearShape *chose* to put out this press release *now*.)

And IF the ClearShape deadline HAS passed, this TSMC press release is a very
humliating Mike Fister bitch slapping -- i.e. "FU, Fister!  We're doing even
better now that you didn't marry us!  TSMC has us at 45 nm.  Where the hell
are you, boy?  Huh?  Huh?  Huh?..."

Talk about taking no prisoners.  Whoa.

Note to self: never never never play poker with Atul Sharan nor Nitin Deo.