What's up with the "datasheet under NDA" mentality? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 18, 2016, 07:35:26 am
content: There are a lot of parts whose datasheet and application notes are under NDA. Why?

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 18, 2016, 08:01:06 am
content: For a few companies i have dealt with, it turned out to be so they could market other stuff to me once they had me trapped behind the NDA.E.g. a HID in circuit reader module, you get bugger all until the NDA, and its not much more involved than an i2c accelerometer after it. but then they come along and start trying to sell you solutions i probably shouldn't know about.

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 18, 2016, 01:56:11 pm
content: The first obvious reason is to keep internal knowledge and IP away from competitors.The second is to keep customers away (no joke). There are technology/semiconductor companies that have a business model of only selling to major players (like Apple or IBM or Samsung etc.). They have no resources/manpower to support a broad market of medium-sized customers. And the design-in effort is the same for a big and for a medium-sized project.

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 18, 2016, 05:09:42 pm
content: It is to prevent the small quantity customers.

author: georges80
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 18, 2016, 10:11:25 pm
content: Yep, as stated, often to keep small customers away.I've had to deal with Marvell for a few products now - not only is the datasheet you are after under NDA, once you get access to their portal to download it, it gets rendered and watermarked with your company and NDA number etc. You also only get access to the datasheet(s) you are approved for - so the bulk of their products are still not accessible. They are one of the more extreme companies I've dealt with.cheers,george.

author: trophosphere
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 18, 2016, 11:50:40 pm
content: Every time I see a product behind a NDA I try my hardest to find an alternative and only resorting to use it if there are no other sensible alternatives. Had an instance where if the component was not under NDA then we would have given an initial purchase order of 200k units. Still, unfortunately, there are a large amount of projects that require stringent specs (overhead cost, deadlines, form-factor, and expertise) in which there would be no choice but to sign the NDA.

author: timb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2016, 12:32:59 am
content: Quote from: georges80 on December 18, 2016, 10:11:25 pmThat's so stupid... Don't they realize PDF is a vector file format? I could remove the watermark and NDA information in 15 seconds with Adobe Illustrator or Autodesk Graphic...The latest one I've run into doesn't involve NDA, but it's still weird none the less. There are some components in PSoC Creator for implementing up to a 17-rail (or more) Power Supervisor system, including Voltage & Current Monitoring, Trim & Margin, Power Sequencing and Pgood Monitoring.All in all it seems like it could be a very powerful system, but the documentation is *very* light, especially for the Trim & Margin component... However, I noticed at the end of that component's datasheet they mention two app notes that don't appear on Cypress' website. In fact, they don't appear anywhere on the web! Further down they mention contacting Cypress Support for access to the documents. The app notes are:AN89127 - Custom Power Supervision with PSoC  5LPAN93529 - Introduction to Power Supervision with PSoC 5LPI've now read through both and still can't figure out what's so super secret special about them that warrants not making them publicly available. Getting access to them was like pulling teeth! They wanted in-depth information about me, my company, my project... Finally, I told them they'd need to sign an NDA before I could go in depth with them about the project. I guess they didn't want to do that, because they finally just sent me a link to the PDFs!(In reality I could have told them about my project without having them sign an NDA, but I thought turnabout would be fair play.)

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2016, 07:52:24 am
content: Quote from: timb on December 19, 2016, 12:32:59 amWell actually you can try, but it will lose it's signature. Also, you can't edit it with any Adobe software. Because they will obey the rules, and refuse to edit.You first have to print to a new pdf, losing OCR and index, then you edit the images. You'll have a massive new PDF you can't search or index in. Not worth the effort unless it's some special part that you can buy in the shop but can't get documents on. (eg: Broadcom BCM2835)

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2016, 11:44:16 am
content: It's pretty easy to process PDFs with open-source software which won't follow Adobe's DRM. But the Chinese, who seem to be most willing to share datasheets, don't really care at all. If anything they leave the watermarks (and sometimes add their own) as a sort of callsign --- I even had some luck getting more datasheets from one whose email was in the watermark.

author: salbayeng
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2016, 12:02:51 pm
content: QuoteThis might be a cultural thing, when in China my guide explained to me how paintings and artworks carry red stamps ("chops") placed there by the artist, and subsequent purchasers, whereas we might see that as lowering the value of an item, over there it increases the value particularly if someone important had owned it. I was forewarned before I went over, so got my own red stamp made, it was bigger than the usual chop (30x60mm) and spelled out "White Dragon engineering" which is about as close as I could get in Mandarin to Salbay engineering (BTW, A salamander is a "white dragon").They won't accept commercial documents etc with just a signature, so you have to stamp everything. Odd how a red stamp suddenly makes anything Kosher.

author: stj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2016, 01:20:24 pm
content: i always felt the function of an NDA was to hide the fact they were probably infringing somebody elses design.

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2016, 02:02:37 pm
content: Probably, or to frustrate the competition.At work we sometimes resell or comission parts from our competitor (they lack a field service departement). However, we are unable to get the software/documents to configure the devices via their website. We must rip the CD or ask customers.Not a problem for us, their inability to service their products creates work for us.