Murata hates engineers

[grumpy_engineer]

So I'm trying to get some PDFs out of Murata for one of their products... and they won't give me access to the PDFs... unless I buy their dev-kit first 

What a load of bullshit, does anyone know why they do this? Do they like to lose customers?

/rant

[devinatkin]

It's similar with so many companies.

The only explanation I have is that they believe their IP is worth more than it actually is. I briefly worked at a startup in an industry where guarding datasheets behind NDAs is the standard. It gets stupid frustrating trying to tell people we aren't big enough or special enough to justify hiding our datasheets like they're gold bullion. The company died, but sadly the attitude lives on.

[E-Design]

So I'm trying to get some PDFs out of Murata for one of their products... and they won't give me access to the PDFs... unless I buy their dev-kit first 

What a load of bullshit, does anyone know why they do this? Do they like to lose customers?

/rant

I wouldnt stand for it. Quantify the amount they will lose without your business and tell them about it. Tell them their competition is happy to provide datasheets so you can design them into your products.

There isnt time for such nonsense. move on to somebody else.

[floobydust]

They're just eliminating tire kickers. Anyone serious about using the part would buy the dev kit, spend the money.
Compare with people ripping off the datasheet or only wanting samples. It does depend on the technology, if it's exclusive.

I find old, traditional manufacturers in Japan or Germany for instance, want a "relationship" before they reveal details or sell you parts. It's some kind of old school method of doing business.

[ANTALIFE]

What secret sauce part is this for?

[jfiresto]

... I find old, traditional manufacturers in Japan or Germany for instance, want a "relationship" before they reveal details or sell you parts. It's some kind of old school method of doing business.

The fun aspect of that, in Germany at least (I know little of Japan), is that once you get to talking, you sometimes flush out what I would term a technical mono-maniac: someone who eats, breathes and probably dreams the area you are asking about. They can not hide it – it just comes out.

[Bassman59]

So I'm trying to get some PDFs out of Murata for one of their products... and they won't give me access to the PDFs... unless I buy their dev-kit first 

What a load of bullshit, does anyone know why they do this? Do they like to lose customers?

/rant

For a fun side project, the other day I was looking for a way to add memory to an FPGA. Rather than buy a big part to get lots of BRAM, I figured that an external SRAM would work well enough. Access to and from the memory is not very fast -- in the worst case the design reads and writes one bit every microsecond. The usual sync and async SRAM chips are too big and also expensive to the point where the bigger FPGA actually makes dollars sense.

Then I realized that serial access SRAMs are a thing and I started looking and came across PSRAMs (pseudo SRAMs) which store 16 Mb and they cost like $1.50 small quantities, from a company I'd never heard of called AP Memory. Their web site says "contact us for Verilog model," so I did, and got a reply demanding an NDA and a description of the product that will use the parts as well as (of course) estimated volume.

I sent a note back saying, "since you require me to sign an NDA for a simple Verilog model of a commodity part, surely you will understand when I say I cannot reveal any details at all about the design under any circumstances."

The reply to that was, "please send us your company's NDA form. Also, we ask about the project so we can recommend a specific device to meet your needs." Hello, asshole, your data sheets and Verilog models are sufficient to let me determine whether the part meets design needs. After one more reply, I wrote back and said, "oh, look, Microchip has suitable parts and they offer a Verilog model without onerous demands for information, and oh by the way my experience with Microchip's support has been nothing but stellar, so you're now on our 'not qualified' list."

The Microchip part is an SRAM, not a PSRAM, and its maximum serial clock rate is much slower than the PSRAM, but with quad SPI access it's still fast enough for the design.

[Kasper]

With maxim I went through the NDA and telling them all about our company to get my hands on a datasheet.  Then when their newer version came out I asked for its datasheet and they said that has it's own NDA.  I requested the NDA multiple times and never heard back. 

[SilverSolder]

You have to wonder who they think they are hiding the datasheet from.   An enterprising competitor will get hold of it no matter what, pretty much...  so the secrecy is really just annoying people that actually want to use the product...

It makes sense to someone, or they wouldn't do it...

[AntiProtonBoy]

They're just eliminating tire kickers. Anyone serious about using the part would buy the dev kit, spend the money.
Compare with people ripping off the datasheet or only wanting samples. It does depend on the technology, if it's exclusive.

I find old, traditional manufacturers in Japan or Germany for instance, want a "relationship" before they reveal details or sell you parts. It's some kind of old school method of doing business.

It literally costs nothing to host a PDF file on a server these days. I mean I get it, they are interested in serious customers and want to drink sake in a whorehouse before signing a contract, but it absolutely gives them no advantage by concealing information about products to the rest of the world, if fact it's the opposite.

[floobydust]

One post by OP, we have no idea what the part is, especially how much proprietry tech is in it.
Why give away your tech, specs and be all open about it on the Internet- if you have a unique product? There are many arguments that companies are giving out far too much information, feeding competitors and cloners, on the Internet. Not all products are mass market commodities made by several companies.
Example Hamamatsu Photonics has incredible technology that is not sold by others. They conceal with good reason. You jump when they say jump.

[grumpy_engineer]

One post by OP, we have no idea what the part is, especially how much proprietry tech is in it.
Why give away your tech, specs and be all open about it on the Internet- if you have a unique product? There are many arguments that companies are giving out far too much information, feeding competitors and cloners, on the Internet. Not all products are mass market commodities made by several companies.
Example Hamamatsu Photonics has incredible technology that is not sold by others. They conceal with good reason. You jump when they say jump.

You know, I could see your point if they asked for an NDA before giving out the datasheet - but that's not the case. All you need to do to get the datasheets is to buy a devkit.

Imagine you are trying to design a fairly complex device. What's the first thing that you do - look at the components you will need right? Check out their datasheets and start putting things together, right? Now imagine if you had to buy a devkit each time you want to check out a component to see if it fits into your design - that's idiotic.

Murata is not asking for an NDA or hiding their information, they are requesting you buy a devkit first before you get their datasheets. If someone wanted to steal their IP I'm sure they have no problems buying a single 50 dollar devkit. Their mitigation strategy won't stop that. Same as their competition, they will have no issues buying a devkit to see what Murata is up too.

The only person who is really affected is stressed-out engineers running against deadlines who have to delay their product by a week until a devkit arrives.

TLDR: Asking people to buy a devkit before they get the datasheets accomplishes nothing but pissing off honest engineers by putting another pointless obstacle in their way. It does not hide their IP, it does not stop their IP from being jacked, it does not stop their competition knowing what they are up to.

[james_s]

The way I deal with this is if I can't get the datasheet easily I go with a competitor's part instead. I'm too small for any company to care, but I also badmouth the companies I have bad experience with to people with a lot more connections and I praise companies I have good dealings with. The reason companies behave this way is that they can get away with it. Usually they're the ones that only care about huge customers who buy hundreds of thousands of parts. Companies like that fail all the time though, just look at all the mergers that have been going on in recent years.

[Bassman59]

With maxim I went through the NDA and telling them all about our company to get my hands on a datasheet.  Then when their newer version came out I asked for its datasheet and they said that has it's own NDA.  I requested the NDA multiple times and never heard back.

Hopefully now that Maxim is part of Analog Devices, their worst practices will end.

[DeanA]

want to drink sake in a whorehouse before signing a contract,

Love it, "drink sake in a whorehouse before signing a contract" reminds me of Malaysia, but there it was Martell Blue. lol.

[floobydust]

If an engineer is stressed out about a 1 week delay getting a dev kit, he's toast.
You're already behind, according to the Gantt chart- before you've even started to dig in. Look for a new job.

Murata is mostly passives, and their DC-DC converters are not rocket science. I find Japanese manufacturers discontinue parts so quickly, they are always about the newest latest greatest, that by time you design it in - it's going obsolete. Toshiba, Hitachi are like that for semiconductors.

[thm_w]

You know, I could see your point if they asked for an NDA before giving out the datasheet - but that's not the case. All you need to do to get the datasheets is to buy a devkit.
...

You still haven't told us what the part is.

[2N3055]

You know, I could see your point if they asked for an NDA before giving out the datasheet - but that's not the case. All you need to do to get the datasheets is to buy a devkit.
...

You still haven't told us what the part is.

Well, you didn't sign the NDA yet...