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Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) and Unified EFI (UEFI)
Background
The Unified EFI (UEFI) specification (previously known as the EFI specification) defines an interface between an operating system and platform firmware. The interface consists of data tables that contain platform-related information, boot service calls, and runtime service calls that are available to the operating system and its loader. These provide a standard environment for booting an operating system and running pre-boot applications.
The UEFI specification was primarily intended for the next generation of IA architecture-based computers, and is an outgrowth of the "Intel® Boot Initiative" (IBI) program that began in 1998. Intel's original version of this specification was publicly named EFI ending with the EFI 1.10 version. In 2005 The Unified EFI Forum was formed as an industry-wide organization to promote adoption and continue the development of the EFI specification. Using the EFI 1.10 specification as the starting point, this industry group released the follow on specifications renamed Unified EFI. The current version of the UEFI Specification can be found at the UEFI web site.
More information
Specifications
The latest version of the UEFI specification is available from the UEFI web site.
Tools and utilities
- Intel® C Compiler for EFI Byte Code
- Application Toolkit Project
- EFI Development Kit
- EFI Development Kit II
- Microsoft* EFI Disk Utilities
Presentations
Recent presentations from the Intel Developer Forum provide updates on UEFI.
Training
Please contact your UEFI Firmware provider for local training in your geography. If you need to setup your own training, contact us for material.
Mailing list
To help us keep people informed of news on Intel events and UEFI industry events, we've set up an EFI Mailing List.
Related information
- Technical article: A brief introduction to the conception of the UEFI shell
- Technical article: The UEFI shell in detail
- Technical article: Using the UEFI shell for bare metal provisioning
Platform innovation framework
The Intel® Platform Innovation Framework for EFI (referred to as "the Framework") is a product-strength firmware implementation that is compliant to the UEFI specification.
UEFI Industry group
Latest UEFI and foundation code for EFI implementations
Firmware providers
- American Megatrends Inc.*
- Insyde Software Corp.*
- Nanjing ByoSoft Co., Ltd*
- Phoenix Technologies, LTD.*
Third party EFI hardware debuggers
Microsoft EFI Disk Utilities
Linux* ELILO* sources
- Source for new ELILO requires gcc3.x and binutils 2.11.90 or higher binaries already compiled Linux* kernel with EFI support for IA32 is available at http://www.kernel.org in any of the kernels starting from 2.6.1 or higher.
- EGRUB - Available upon request. Send e-mail to EFI General Feedback
- Novell* - UEFI SLES/SLED 11 partitioning recommendations for installing X64
- Fedora* - EFI Fedora 9 wiki
Archival information
The information in this section is for reference information and not for current product implementation.
Specifications
Documentation
Tools and utilities
- Application toolkit
- Sample implementation
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Security white paper from IDF 2009
File Type/Size: PDF 3.04MB
The EFI Specification and all other information on this web site are provided "as is" with no warranties of any kind, including without limitation the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement, and are subject to change without notice.
