Find the right bootloader solution or combination of firmware required to boot a platform considering its security, product features, and optimized boot solutions. This book covers system boot firmware, focusing on real-world firmware migration from closed source to open-source adaptation.

The book provides an architectural overview of popular boot firmware. This includes both closed sourced and/or open source in nature, such as Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), core boot, and Slim Bootloader and their applicable market segments based on product development and deployment requirements.

• open-source firmware is used over closed source
• The pros and cons of closed and open-source firmware
• A hybrid work model: for faster bring-up activity using closed source, binary integrated with open source firmware

What You Will Learn

• Understand the architecture of standard and popular boot firmware
• Pick the correct bootloader for your required target hardware
• Design a hybrid workflow model for the latest chipset platform
• Understand popular payload architectures and offerings for embedded systems
• Select the right payload for your bootloader solution to boot to the operating system
• Optimize the system firmware boot time based on your target hardware requirement
• Know the product development cycle using open source firmware development

Who This Book Is For

Embedded firmware and software engineers migrating the product development from closed source firmware to open source firmware for product adaptation needs as well as engineers working for open source firmware development. A secondary audience includes engineers working on various bootloaders such as open source firmware, UEFI, and Slim Bootloader development, as well as undergraduate and graduate students working on developing firmware skill sets.

Table of Contetns

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Knowing Your Hardware

Chapter 3: Understanding the BIOS and Minimalistic Design

Chapter 4: System Firmware Architecture

Chapter 5: Hybrid Firmware Architecture

Chapter 6: Payload

Chapter 7: Case Studies

About the Authors

Subrata Banik is a firmware engineer with more than a decade in the computer industry. He has acquired experience in system firmware design, development, and debugging across various firmware architectures like UEFI, coreboot, and Slim Bootloader for x86 and ARM platforms. Subrata has profound experience with platform enablement, which had led to working on all leading PC makers’ products. Subrata is an active member of open-source firmware (OSF) development across different projects like coreboot, oreboot, flashrom, and EDKII, where he is one of the leading contributors in open firmware (coreboot) development. Subrata has received multiple US patents and is very passionate about learning new technology and sharing knowledge among enthusiast engineers. Subrata has presented technical talks at industry events such as the Open Source Firmware conference, Institute for Security and Technology, and Intel Developer Forum.

When not writing or working, he enjoys watching sports (especially football) or spending time with his daughter. A fun fact about Subrata is he is a strong believer in time travel.

Vincent Zimmer has been working on embedded firmware for the last 30 years. Vincent has contributed to or created firmware spanning various firmware initiatives, including the Extensible Firmware Interface, where Vincent presently leads the Security subteam in the UEFI Forum. Vincent has co-authored various papers and books. He is also a co-inventor on over 450 US patents.

Stefan Reinauer is a Staff Engineer in the ChromeOS Group at Google Inc. He has been working on open source firmware solutions ever since he started the OpenBIOS project in 1997. He joined the LinuxBIOS project in 1999 and worked on the first x64 port for LinuxBIOS in 2003. In 2005, Stefan founded coresystems GmbH, the first company to ever provide commercial support and development around the coreboot project, working on ports to new chipsets and mainboards. In 2008, Stefan took over maintainership of the LinuxBIOS project and renamed it as coreboot. He was the original implementer of the project's ACPI and SMM implementations. Since 2010, Stefan has lead the coreboot efforts at Google and contributed significantly to what is the largest coreboot deployment in the history of the project. He currently lives in the San Francisco Bay area.

Zhixiong (Jonathan) Zhang has been working on system software and firmware for the last 20 years. Jonathan is passionate at achieving computer system solutions (such as CXL memory solution) through holistic designs of software/hardware, and of various software components. He is thrilled at collaborating with industry colleagues to form visions, and make them into reality. Jonathan has been spearheading coreboot/LinuxBoot development for servers based on Intel Xeon server processors, through multiple generations from ground up. He initiated and has been leading an industry

coalition on this journey. Prior to Meta, he led UEFI/ATF development for ARM servers and made it commercially viable from the ground up; he also led UEFI and windows/Linux driver development for smart phones. Jonathan is a frequent speaker on firmware/software topics at industry conferences. He is an active participant of several industry standard organizations (such as CXL forum, OCP, UEFI forum) and made a number of specification changes.