UEFI Forum, Inc. is an

alliance An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or sovereign state, states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not an explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an a ...

between technology companies to coordinate the development of the

UEFI Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI, as an acronym) is a Specification (technical standard), specification for the firmware Software architecture, architecture of a computing platform. When a computer booting, is powered on, the UEFI ...

specifications. The board of directors includes representatives from twelve ''promoter'' companies:

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California and maintains significant operations in Austin, Texas. AMD is a hardware and fabless company that de ...

, American Megatrends,

ARM In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between ...

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

Dell Dell Inc. is an American technology company that develops, sells, repairs, and supports personal computers (PCs), Server (computing), servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals including printers and webcam ...

Hewlett Packard Enterprise The Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE) is an American multinational information technology company based in Spring, Texas. It is a business-focused organization which works in servers, storage, networking, containerization software and ...

HP Inc. HP Inc. is an American multinational information technology company with its headquarters in Palo Alto, California, that develops personal computers (PCs), printers and related supplies, as well as 3D printing services. It is the world's s ...

Insyde Software Insyde Software () is a company that specializes in UEFI system firmware and engineering support services, primarily for OEM and ODM computer and component device manufacturers. They are listed on the Gre Tai Market of Taiwan and headquartered ...

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

Lenovo Lenovo Group Limited, trading as Lenovo ( , zh, c=联想, p=Liánxiǎng), is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, personal computers, software, servers, conv ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

, and

Phoenix Technologies Phoenix Technologies Ltd. is an American company that designs, develops and supports core system software for personal computers and other computing devices. The company's products commonly referred to as BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) or fir ...

Overview

The non-profit corporation has assumed responsibility for the management and promotion of the

Unified Extensible Firmware Interface Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI, as an acronym) is a Specification (technical standard), specification for the firmware Software architecture, architecture of a computing platform. When a computer booting, is powered on, the UEFI ...

(UEFI) specification, a

bootloader A bootloader, also spelled as boot loader or called bootstrap loader, is a computer program that is responsible for booting a computer and booting an operating system. If it also provides an interactive menu with multiple boot choices then it's o ...

and runtime interface between platform

firmware In computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computer, computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and the development of both computer hardware, h ...

and an

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

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

BIOS In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is a type of firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization d ...

. In addition to the UEFI specification, the forum is responsible for a

UEFI Platform Initialization The Platform Initialization Specification (PI 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 ...

(PI) specification, 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. In October 2013, the

Advanced Configuration and Power Interface Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) is an open standard that operating systems can use to discover and configure computer hardware components, to perform power management (e.g. putting unused hardware components to sleep), auto con ...

(ACPI) assets have also been transferred into the forum. The forum is responsible for the management and promotion of future ACPI specifications, which provides static tables at boot time and dynamic control methods as the primary runtime interfaces between the OS and system firmware for system configuration, power management and RAS (Reliability, Availability and Supportability) features. ACPI "Revision 5.0" is used as the starting point from which future ACPI versions will be developed.

Published specifications

* ''UEFI Specification version 2.8'', published March, 2019 * ''UEFI Shell Specification version 2.2'', published January 26, 2016 * ''UEFI Platform Initialization Specification version 1.7'', published January, 2019 * ''UEFI Platform Initialization Distribution Packaging Specification version 1.1'', published January, 2016 * ''ACPI Specification version 6.4'', published January 2021

Obsolete specifications

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

References

External links

* {{Official, http://www.uefi.org
Fedora UEFI support

Microsoft Windows UEFI support

Book Chapter - UEFI: From Reset Vector to Operating System

* ttp://www.intel.com/technology/itj/2011/v15i1/index.htm ''Intel Technology Journal'', Volume 15, Issue 01 - "UEFI Today: Bootstrapping the Continuum" BIOS Unified Extensible Firmware Interface Technology consortia

Overview

Published specifications

Obsolete specifications

See also

References

External links