UEFI Introduction

Brief History On EFI
Interface specification

- Implementation agnostic

Compatible by design

- Evolution, not revolution
Abstracts BIOS from OS

- Decouples development
Modular and extensible

- OS-Neutral value add
Provide efficient Option ROM Replacement

- Common source for multiple CPU architectures
 


UEFI Forum

Unified EFI Forum, Inc. created for standardization
A Washington non-profit Corporation

- Develops, promotes and manages evolution of Unified EFI Specification

- Continue to drive low barrier for adoption

Promoter members:

- AMD, AMI, Apple, Dell, HP, IBM, Insyde, Intel, Lenovo, Microsoft, Phoenix

Tiered Membership:

- Promoters, Contributors and Adopters

More information: http://www.uefi.org

 


Unified EFI (UEFI) Forum – www.uefi.org
• Promoters

– OEMs: Dell, HP, IBM, Lenovo
– IBVs: AMI, Insyde, Phoenix
– AMD, Apple, Intel, Microsoft
• UEFI Specification

– EFI 1.10 specification contributed to the Forum by Intel and Microsoft to be used as a starting draft
– UEFI 2.1 specification released.
– Forum will evolve, extend, and add any new functionality as required
– Intel contributed EFI 1.10 SCT being used as starting base for UEFI conformance tests
 


UEFI Membership
Promoters: board and corporate officers

 

 

Contributors:

- Corporations, groups or individuals wanting to participate in UEFI 

- Chance to join work groups and contribute to spec or test development

- Early access to drafts and work in progress

 

 

Adopters: - Any entity wanting to implement the specification

 



 


UEFI Promoters, Contributors and Adopters

11 Promoters

20+ Contributors

70+ Adopters


How the UEFI Forum Works
• Board sets strategic direction – Charters work groups to implement direction

• Work groups drawn from membership – Staffed by Promoters and Contributors

• Board approves work groups proposals

• Work Groups:

– USWG – UEFI Specification Working Group • responsible for UEFI Spec production

– UTWG – UEFI Testing Working Group • Responsible for publishing

SCT – PIWG – Platform Initialization Working Group

• Responsible for the spec that will eventually replace the framework level specs

– ICWG: Industry Communications

 



UEFI Many Groups working together for Standardizing Firmware

 

 


Framework

Intel® Platform Innovation Framework for EFI and UEFI


Key Benefits

• Better - Faster - Cheaper to develop firmware

• Provides for flexibility –modularity –future growth

• Enables independence of drivers and applications from underlying hardware

• Framework is Intel implementation of EFI and UEFI