First he was staying, then he left. Now OnLive founder Steve Perlman is explaining why he changed his mind.

In a note posted on an enthusiast Web site, Perlman said he decided to leave OnLive because he had other projects  he had neglected while focusing most of his attention over the last 10 years on the streaming game company. After helping guide the company through the bankruptcy-like process it went through earlier this month and into the hands of investor Gary Lauder, Perlman felt he was finally able to step away from OnLive.

“For me, the end of last week was the first time in a very long time where I could actually consider the possibility of moving on without having to worry about the company,” said Perlman, who served as OnLive CEO, in his note, which was posted on OnLivefans.com. “It’s hard to leave my creation behind, but there is also a huge sense of relief that I can finally step off the treadmill and know that OnLive is in good hands.” OnLive spokeswoman Jane Anderson confirmed that the note was written by Perlman.

Perlman’s explanation agrees with that given by OnLive on Monday when it announced his departure. The company said he was leaving to work on other projects. Perlman was not available for comment following the company’s announcement.

Neither OnLive nor Perlman specifically mentioned the projects on which he now plans to work. In addition to OnLive, he also runs Rearden Labs, a technology research and development firm that birthed both the streaming game company and Mova, an OnLive subsidiary whose motion-capture technology is used in movies and games. Last year, Perlman and Rearden announced a new wireless communication technology that purports to solve the problem of over-taxed WiFi hotspots and cellular towers.

Earlier this month, OnLive, which had outstanding debts of between $30 million and $40 million, went through an alternative to bankruptcy called an “assignment for the benefit of creditors.” Unlike a bankruptcy, the assignment process operates under state law and typically can be concluded in rapid fashion.

OnLive’s assets were assigned to Insolvency Services Group, which turned around and quickly sold them to a new company funded by Lauder. The new company has adopted OnLive’s name and has continued operating its services non-stop. All of OnLive’s approximately 200 employees were laid off as part of the assignment process, although the company later offered jobs to nearly half of them.

Perlman was expected to remain at OnLive following the transition. But the restructured company announced Monday that he was leaving. The company’s new leadership team includes Lauder as its chairman and Charlie Jablonski, the former vice president of operations, as its acting CEO and chief operating officer.

Electroglas, the San Jose supplier of wafer testing tools to the chip making industry, filed for bankruptcy protection saying that “as a result of the global economic recession, demand for semiconductor manufacturing equipment has declined dramatically,” according to a press release it issued.

Earlier today the company filed notice with the SEC that its chief executive  served notice on Monday that he would be stepping down from his position Aug. 3.

In its press release today announcing the bankruptcy filing the company wrote:

“Over the past several months, Electroglas has undertaken significant efforts to reduce its expenses and working capital requirements in response to these unprecedented market conditions. These efforts have included significant work force reductions, salary cuts, mandatory time off for all of the company’s employees and significant decreases in non-labor expenses.”

Electroglas management  has been working with Needham & Co. and others to help it review its “strategic options,” including merging into another company or selling off its assets.

The current plan is for certain Electroglas bondholders to provide debtor-in-possession financing during the bankruptcy process and for the company to conduct an auction to sell itself. In the meantime the company said it expects to continue essential operations, including sales, product support, service and warranty programs.

In case they haven’t gotten the message already, Asyst Technologies advised investors today in an SEC filing that its shares will probably be worthless before the liquidation process is over in its current bankruptcy proceedings.

The company has struggled over the last year in its ultimately unsuccessful attempt to remain in compliance with the terms of its debt, not to mention fighting off a take-over attempt by a company run by its ex-CEO and a proxy fight threatened by a major investor.

Since filing for bankruptcy protection April 24, the company says it “has noticed the continuing high trading volume” in its stock, it said today. “Asyst management confirms for investors its strong belief that there will be no value for the common stockholders in the bankruptcy liquidation process, even under the most optimistic of scenarios.”

The filing goes on to draw a clear simple picture for anyone who still doesn’t get it.

“Holders of common stock of a company in chapter 11 generally receive value only after all claims of the company’s secured and unsecured creditors have first been fully satisfied. In this case, Asyst’s management strongly believes all such creditor claims will not be fully satisfied, leading to its conclusion that Asyst common stock will have no value.”

Spansion, the bankrupt Sunnyvale flash memory maker that gave its executives a retention-based pay raise in February the same day it fired 3,000 workers, named its fourth chief financial officer in less than five months.

Randy Furr was named to replace Nathan Sarkisian, who served as interim CFO since May 20 when he replaced the previous interim chief financial officer, Thora Thoroddsen. Thoroddsen is a senior vice president with the crisis management consulting firm Spansion hired days before it filed for bankruptcy protection Feb. 28. She became Spansion’s interim CFO in April when the company’s previous full-time CFO and a recipient of the retention-based pay raise, Dario Sacomani, quit.

Furr is the former chief operating officer of Sanmina-SCI who left that company unexpectedly in October 2005 “for personal and family reasons.” He resurfaced seven months later as chief financial officer of Adobe Systems, but resigned that post about a month after a special committee of Sanmina-SCI’s board announced that it would have to restate past financial statements as a result of “improper stock option grants.”

Furr agreed to repay $126,480 to cover the increased strike price of mispriced Sanmina options he previously exercised and to forfeit his right to a severance payment from Sanmina-SCI as part of a deal approved May 1 to settle a shareholder lawsuit over backdating allegations.

Furr’s offer letter guarantees him an annual salary of $440,000 and an annual target bonus of between 70-100 percent of that, subject to the approval of the Bankruptcy court, according to a filing today.

He will report to Chief Executive John Kispert, who’s original contract when he was hired in February called for him to receive a $1.75 million bonus should the company be sold. Since then the board has decided to pursue a “standalone” strategy and the bonus will now also be paid when its reorganization plan is approved.

Aviza Technology, the Scotts Valley supplier of condsemiconductor manufacturing equipment, filed for bankruptcy protection this morning on behalf of itself and its subsidiaries Aviza and Trikon Technologies, according to a company release.

Last month the company’s lenders notified Aviza that it was in default on its credit agreements, demanding that it immediately pay what it owed on its loans. As of May 26, that amounted to $29.5 million, according to Aviza.

The company has also been under continuing threat of having its shares delisted from trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

In April, the company said earnings for its fiscal 2009 first quarter would be lower than expected. The company said sales would be in the range of $9.5 million to $11 million, lower than the $13 million to $18 million the company had expected. Final results for the quarter have yet to be released and the company is now late in filing its required financial report with the SEC.

The company said it has made “significant efforts” over the past several months “to reduce its expenses and working capital requirements in response to” unprecedented market conditions for its products, including work force reductions, executive salary cuts, and mandatory time off for all employees.

Aviza said it has been working with Needham & Company “to review and pursue financial and strategic options for the company to maximize value on behalf of all of the company’s stakeholders, including merging with or into another company, a sale of all or substantially all of the company’s assets, and the liquidation or dissolution of the company through bankruptcy proceedings.”

Prior to the Chapter 11 filing, Aviza said it signed a nonbinding letter of intent to sell some of its assets and businesses to Sumitomo Precision Products of Japan.

“We have been working hard to find a buyer that would best leverage our products and provide on-going support to our customers,” said Jerry Cutini, Aviza’s president and CEO, in a statement Wednesday. “Through this voluntary bankruptcy process, we can continue to operate our business and pursue an orderly transition to SPP with minimal impact on our customers and employees.”

Aviza Technology, which itself notified the Nasdaqlisi stock market last week that it would not comply with its financial reporting rules because of its failure to timely file its quarterly 10-Q report with the SEC, received word back from Nasdaq last week confirming that, yep, it is subject to being delisted.

The company has 60 days to submit a plant to regain compliance, and if Nasdaq accepts the plan, could be granted an exception of up to 180 days, or until Nov. 9 to regain compliance before being delisted.

The Scotts Valley maker of equipment used to manufacture semiconductors, a product line that has been under unprecedented pressure during the current downturn, warned nearly a month after its March quarter ended that its results wouldn’t measure up to its previously announced guidance.

The company, which retained Needham & Co. to assist it in “reviewing financial and strategic options”, has evidently decided to focus its efforts on that review rather than devoting its resources to comply with its filing requirement, “in order to preserve the company’s financial resources in the interim”, according to a filing last week.

The company’s management is says it is taking steps to “maximize value on behalf of all of the company’s stakeholders, which may include merging with or into another company, a sale of all or substantially all of the company’s assets, or the liquidation or dissolution of the company through bankruptcy proceedings.”

Starting tomorrow, Spansion’s shares will no longer trade on the Nasdaq exchange, according to a filing the flash memory maker made Wednesday.

In its statement filed with the SEC, Spansion said it “does not expect the delisting to have any significant impact to its business.”

Spansion shares, which closed Tuesday at 17 cents each, lost 7 cents, or 41 percent, with nearly 45 million shares trading hands, nearly ten times its average volume over the last six months.

The company said it believes it is “making progress on its restructuring plans.” The company hopes to win approval of its reorganization by the end of the year, at which time it will “seek a re-listing on one of the major stock exchanges at the appropriate time after the completion of its restructuring process.”

Applied Micro Devices became the latest victim of the bankruptcy of Spansion, a company it helped bring into being in a joint venture with Fujitsu that eventually was spun out into a separate public company.

As part of its reorganization, Spansion filed a motion in which it indicated that it does not intend to “perform its obligations under its sublease agreement” with AMD over space it subleases to the troubled flash memory maker that axed 3,000 workers in February before filing for bankruptcy.

In an SEC filing yesterday, AMD estimated it will take a charge of $5 million in its current quarter related to its once-prized, now-deadbeat offspring decision to stop paying rent.

Also warning of Spansion-related losses Thursday was Aehr Test Systems, which said that it would be recording about $25.3 million in charges for its fiscal 2009 third quarter related to the bankruptcy filing by the Fremont chip-equipment company’s best customer, including $13.7 million for bad debt and $5.7 million for excess and obsolete inventory.

In February, before Spansion filed for bankruptcy protection, another chip-equipment company sued it over money for product that was ordered by, and delivered to, Spansion, but which was never paid for. FormFactor, the Livermore maker of wafer probe cards, claims Spansion owes it $8.1 million.

Vermillion, the biotech company formerly known as Ciphergen Biosystems, filed for bankruptcy protection Monday after losing four of the directors on its board the week before, when it also received the the asked-for resignations of its CEO, interim chief financial officer, and vice president in charge of business development.

None of the director resignations were “the result of any disagreement” with the company, and the senior executives quit “for the sole reason of conserving Company resources”, according to the filing announcing the news.

We first wrote about Vermillion in September 2007 when we noted that Phronesis Partners, an Ohio-based hedge fund that takes its name from a Greek term used by the philosopher Aristotle to denote “practical wisdom,” or “prudence,” disclosed that it was Vermillion’s largest shareholder then the largest owner of of a company that has yet to show a profit and has accumulated losses to the tune of $218 million since its founding in 1993.

Two days before defaulting on $266 million worth of debt obligations, chip-maker Spansion agreed to give its newly hired chief executive, John Kispert, a four-month advance on his $900,000 annual salary, an advance he won’t have to pay back should he quit before four months have elapsed.

He was also guaranteed a $1.75 million bonus contingent upon the company merging with another chip maker, or selling off  its assets. Two caveats: first, the transaction needs to cover all of Spansion’s secured creditors’ claims; and second, no trustee can have been appointed yet “in connection with any bankruptcy proceedings.”

Clearly the possibility of bankruptcy was  on the mind of  Spansion’s board, which assured Kispert that if such a filing comes to pass, the company agrees to “use reasonable efforts to obtain bankruptcy court approval of this letter agreement within 60 days of such filing.”