UEFI定义
新型UEFI,全称“统一的可扩展固件接口”(Unified Extensible Firmware Interface), 是一种详细描述类型接口的标准。这种接口用于操作系统自动从预启动的操作环境,加载到一种操作系统上。
UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is a standard firmware interface for PCs, designed to replace BIOS (basic input/output system). This standard was created by over 140 technology companies as part of the UEFI consortium, including Microsoft.
UEFI与BIOS
It's designed to improve software interoperability and address limitations of BIOS. Some advantages of UEFI firmware include:
Better security by helping to protect the pre-startup—or pre-boot—process against bootkit attacks.
Faster startup times and resuming from hibernation.
Support for drives larger than 2.2 terabytes (TB).
Support for modern, 64-bit firmware device drivers that the system can use to address more than 17.2 billion gigabytes (GB) of memory during startup.
Capabililty to use BIOS with UEFI hardware.
All 64-bit versions of PCs running Windows with a logo from the Windows Certification Program will use UEFI instead of BIOS.
与BIOS不同的是,UEFI体系的驱动并不是由直接运行在CPU上的代码组成的,而是用EFI Byte Code(EFI字节代码)编写而成的。Java是以“Byte Code”形式存在的,正是这种没有一步到位的中间性机制,使Java可以在多种平台上运行。UEFI也借鉴了类似的做法。EFI Byte Code是一组用于UEFI驱动的虚拟机器指令,必须在UEFI驱动运行环境下被解释运行,由此保证了充分的向下兼容性。