UEFI - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Unified EFI Forum or UEFI Forum (where UEFI stands for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is an alliance between several leading technology companies to modernize the booting

Booting

In computing, booting is a process that begins when a user turns on a computer system and prepares the computer to perform its normal operations. On modern computers, this typically involves loading and starting an operating system. The boot sequence is the initial set of operations that the...

process. The board of directors includes representatives from eleven "Promoter" companies: AMD, American Megatrends

American Megatrends

American Megatrends Incorporated is an American hardware and software company that specializes in PC hardware and firmware. The company was founded in 1985 by Pat Sarma and S. Shankar, who was chairman and president...

, Apple

Apple Computer

Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...

, Dell

Dell

Dell, Inc. is an American multinational information technology corporation based in 1 Dell Way, Round Rock, Texas, United States, that develops, sells and supports computers and related products and services. Bearing the name of its founder, Michael Dell, the company is one of the largest...

, HP

Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...

, IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

, Insyde Software

Insyde Software

Insyde Software is a company listed on the Gre Tai Market of Taiwan. It is headquartered in Taipei with offices in Westborough, MA and Portland, OR, USA. The company's market capitalization of the company's common shares is currently around $115M...

, Intel, Lenovo, Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

, and Phoenix Technologies

Phoenix Technologies

Phoenix Technologies Ltd designs, develops and supports core system software for personal computers and other computing devices. Phoenix's products — commonly referred to as BIOS or firmware — support and enable the compatibility, connectivity, security and management of the various components and...

Overview

The non-profit corporation has assumed responsibility for the management and promotion of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) specification, a bootloader and runtime interface between platform firmware

Firmware

In electronic systems and computing, firmware is a term often used to denote the fixed, usually rather small, programs and/or data structures that internally control various electronic devices...

and an operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

. The original EFI specification was developed by Intel and was used as the starting point from which the UEFI version(s) were developed. The goal of the organization is to replace the aging PC BIOS

BIOS

In IBM PC compatible computers, the basic input/output system , also known as the System BIOS or ROM BIOS , is a de facto standard defining a firmware interface....

.

In addition to the UEFI specification, the forum is responsible for a Platform Initialization (PI) specification

Platform Initialization Specification

The Platform Initialization Specification is a specification published by the Unified EFI Forum that describes the internal interfaces between different parts of computer platform firmware. This allows for more interoperability between firmware components from different sources...

, which addresses the firmware internal architecture as well as firmware-to-hardware interfaces. The forum also is responsible for Self-Certification Test suites, which defines conformance to the specifications that it defines.

Published specifications

UEFI Specification version 2.3, published May 8, 2009
UEFI Shell Specification version 2.0, published October 8, 2008
UEFI Platform Initialization Specification version 1.2, published May 14, 2009
UEFI Platform Initialization Distribution Packaging Specification version 1.0, published May 13, 2009

Obsoleted specifications

UEFI Specification version 2.0, 2.1, 2.2
UEFI Platform Initialization Specification version 1.0, 1.1

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.