Why NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement)?

[RoGeorge]

Many companies produce MCU's (Micro Controller Unit), especially in SoC (System on a Chip), but they are not selling these chips without a NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) with the beneficiary. Usually, these chips are for mass production (like phone or tablet MCU's), still, they are not custom chips. As a consequence of the NDA, there are no data sheets, manuals and other documentation publicly available.

Why would a company produce a chip, then keep the documentation secret? 8-O
Could somebody, please, enumerate the main reasons for a NDA policy?

 

[bhav]

to make replication difficult by other manufacturers

 

[sky_123]

It's not a secret necessarily, the company just wants to work with you. If it is a mass production device, and a sufficiently complicated product, then it makes a lot of sense for the product to be a success for both you and the component supplier. An NDA means that engineers from that company can work with you, without having to have every document they send to you having to be ratified by a lawyer, if an NDA is in place already.

 

[RoGeorge]

Thank you four your replies.

In fact, I was frustrated because I couldn't find much about OMAP850, the SoC embedded in this mobile phone:
https://www.gsmarena.com/htc_p3300-1693.php
Now, the phone is out of use but still working. I would love messing around with embedded Linux on my old HTC3300.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find enough documentation. :-(
Any help would be great.