Hi, David, I think this is becoming more and more common in the industry, at least for networking chips. I think Marvell also requires an NDA to get the datasheet for the 1 GbE PHYs on the ROACH2 itself. Are you aware of any similar SFP+ PHYs that do NOT require an NDA for the datasheet?
Dave On Jan 29, 2013, at 12:34 PM, David Forbes wrote: > Hi all, > > I'm looking at the SFP+ card for the ROACH 2 board. It appears to use a > Vitesse 8488 PHY chip. The Vitesse folks say I need to sign a non-disclosure > agreement (NDA) to read the data sheet. > > It seems like a big problem to use a chip with secrets in its data sheet in a > board for an open hardware platform. Which is to say, I will have a hard > discussing the merits of using this part with my coworkers (or anyone else on > the CASPER list) unless they sign the NDA as well. > > Thoughts? > -- > David Forbes Steward Observatory / ARO > University of Arizona [email protected] > 933 N Cherry Room 172 phone 520-626-1361 > Tucson AZ 85721 fax 520-621-5554 > >
