POWER9 support in coreboot
12-02, 14:00–14:30 (Europe/Berlin), Main Stage

coreboot is an open source firmware development framework and its history is
reaching 1999. Its primary goal was to boot the machine as fast as possible and
launch a Linux kernel. OpenPOWER firmware has a similar goal: initialize the
hardware and launch a Linux kernel. coreboot has always been in favor of open
hardware and open firmware solutions. The best proof is that the first open
firmware implementation for RISC-V appeared right here, in coreboot. Now the
time comes for OpenPOWER.

This talk will describe the plans of porting the POWER9 architecture to
coreboot along with Talos II and Talos II Lite machines. With joint cooperation
of 3mdeb Embedded Systems Consulting, Insurgo Technologies Libres/Open
Technologies and Raptor Computing Systems this plan may become a reality in the
near future. In this presentation the details of coreboot port for POWER9 will
be discussed covering hostboot, skiboot and petitboot and how they fit into
coreboot firmware model.

Although the coreboot project aims to support fully open source boot firmware,
it is not always possible to avoid binary blobs that initialize hardware. A
good example of such a situation is modern x86 architecture. That is why we
need to push open hardware and firmware such as RISC-V and OpenPOWER. By
enabling POWER9 hardware in coreboot, the OpenPOWER will become much more
popular. The community will have a chance to benefit from using coreboot on the
open platforms such as Talos II and Talos II Lite, platforms which respect your
freedom (RYF).


Related Projects

coreboot, Linux

See also: Slides (6.0 MB)

Firmware Engineer with networking background. Feels comfortable with low-level development using C/C++ and assembly. Interested in advanced hardware features, security and coreboot. Core developer of coreboot. Maintainer of Braswell SoC, PC Engines, Protectli and Libretrend platforms. Creating open source firmware solution in 3mdeb Embedded Systems Consulting for 3 years. Active speaker at various open source firmware related conferences: Open Source Firmware Conference 2018 and 2019, Xen Developer And Design Summit 2020 and others.

This speaker also appears in:

Piotr Król is a multi-disciplinary executive running several companies in the embedded systems and semiconductor industries, including 3mdeb, LPN Plant, and Vitro Technology. Prior to starting his own companies, he worked as an engineer for Intel for over seven years. Piotr is also an open-source evangelist, active in the Open Source Firmware (e.g. coreboot) and Linux communities.

This speaker also appears in: