How to get technical information?

[Peter Busser]

Hi!

I'm sorry if this is a FAQ...

How does one get technical information from chipset manufacturers? I have
searched the SiS and VIA web sites and found no documentation or pointers to
documentation whatsoever. Or am I simply not looking well enough?

Groetjes,
Peter Busser

[ron minnich]

On Tue, 20 May 2003, Peter Busser wrote:
> How does one get technical information from chipset manufacturers? I have
> searched the SiS and VIA web sites and found no documentation or pointers to
> documentation whatsoever. Or am I simply not looking well enough?

depends. developer.intel.com is a good site. You get about 98% of what you 
need to do a bios on there, which is about 98% more than many vendors give 
you.

Some examples:

Best vendors we've seen on this list:
micron. You ask for docs, you get Mbytes of pdf and other info. 
AMD for the K8

Next best (i.e. you don't get 100 % but if you ask you might)
Intel (they've been very good in the last year)
SiS   (helped write good)
VIA   (sometimes good, but where is m-epia?)

Chipset vendors who have made it clear they have no plans to cooperate,
either in written or spoken communications:
serverworks
Nvidia

ron

[Richard Smith]

ron minnich wrote:
> Best vendors we've seen on this list:
> micron. You ask for docs, you get Mbytes of pdf and other info. 
> AMD for the K8
>
> Next best (i.e. you don't get 100 % but if you ask you might)
> Intel (they've been very good in the last year)

Intel is a hit and miss.  Like Ron says you just have to ask..  We 
looked at trying to use the 440MX chipset to replace our 44BX based 
board and was told that even though Bitworks already has an NDA in place 
with Arrow (Arrow is our Intel vendor) we were going to have to sigh a 
extra Double-dog secret NDA for 440MX info.  (The 'red' cover agreement 
rather than the 'yellow' cover agreemnet) and it was very doubtful that 
any of that stuff would be releaseable under GPL code.  So we had to 
bail and stick with the 440bx which has almost all the info available on 
the website.

Richard Smith  writes:
> ron minnich wrote:
> > Best vendors we've seen on this list:
> > micron. You ask for docs, you get Mbytes of pdf and other info. AMD
> > for the K8
> > Next best (i.e. you don't get 100 % but if you ask you might)
> > Intel (they've been very good in the last year)
>
> Intel is a hit and miss.  Like Ron says you just have to ask..  We
> looked at trying to use the 440MX chipset to replace our 44BX based
> board and was told that even though Bitworks already has an NDA in
> place with Arrow (Arrow is our Intel vendor) we were going to have to
> sigh a extra Double-dog secret NDA for 440MX info.  (The 'red' cover
> agreement rather than the 'yellow' cover agreemnet) and it was very
> doubtful that any of that stuff would be releaseable under GPL code.
> So we had to bail and stick with the 440bx which has almost all the
> info available on the website.

Just to underscore this Intel routinely does not put a couple of
registers in their public docs.  For which reverse engineering may
actually be easier than getting Intels Double-Dog secret NDAs.  But
actually knowing what is going on always helps.

Eric

[Richard Smith]

Peter Busser wrote:
> I'm sorry if this is a FAQ...
>
> How does one get technical information from chipset manufacturers? I have
> searched the SiS and VIA web sites and found no documentation or pointers to
> documentation whatsoever. Or am I simply not looking well enough?

Its not.  But its a good one to add.

If the info isn't available on the web then it probally only accessable 
by an NDA agreement with the manufacturers.  You need to find what sales 
organization reps the Mfg and then contact them.  They can get you in 
touch with people who can get you the data.  While a big PITA an NDA 
dosn't necessarlly prohibit you from doing LB work with that chipset.

Some mfgs allow you to release your source GPL and only hold you to keep 
an NDA on the documents you used to generate your source code.  Some of 
course don't and require that you can only release binaries which would 
make them incompatible with LB.

I whine to mfg reps about this type stuff all the time.  "Why do you 
guys keep your register docs under NDA and make it so difficult on us to 
get?"  The most common response other than  "Well thats just the way we 
do it." is that if the full register level documentation for a 
particular chip is aviailable publically then its pretty easy for me to 
make an exact knockoff of that chip that will be drop in compatible.

Sounds like a lot of work but when you are talking big volumes of parts 
the ammount of $$ at stake are quite large.  So if you can make a pin 
compatible version of say an Intel northbridge and then go hit up Intel 
customers with a lower price you will probally get a lot of buisness 
especially if you shave couple dollars off the cost.

Placing the register descriptions under NDA makes that much harder and 
gives them a legal path to stop it should it occur.

It sucks and I don't fully agree but I can see the logic.