OpenPOWER Firmware

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OpenPOWER Firmware is an open-source alternative to OpenFirmware and proprietary IBM firmware used on Power machines.[1] It is a general name for many separate pieces of software used to start recent Power Architecture chips made by IBM.[2]

OpenBMC is a separate project that creates firmware for the Baseboard Management Controller.

Components

Firmware Executed on Loaded from Function
Self-Boot Engine (SBE) SBE core (on CPU chip) SEEPROM
  • initialises CPU core
  • loads Hostboot
Hostboot CPU core SPI Flash
  • loads Skiboot
  • inits DRAM (zeroing for ECC mem.), Processor Bus, Memory buffer
Skiboot CPU core
  • implements OpenPOWER Abstraction Layer (OPAL) for OS runtime services
  • setup PCIe, device tree, real time clock, NVlink, sensors
  • loads Petitboot, OCC
Petitboot CPU core
  • boot menu
  • loads operating system
On-Chip Controller (OCC) OCC core (on CPU chip)
  • thermal regulation on CPU chip

Process

  1. OpenBMC starts SBE
  2. SBE loads Hostboot
  3. Hostboot loads Skiboot
  4. Skiboot loads OCC, Petitboot
  5. Petitboot loads the operating system
  6. operating system talks to firmware through OPAL

References

  1. ↑ Kerr, Jeremy. OpenPOWER: building an open-source software stack from bare metal. LCA 2015 - video on YouTube
  2. ↑ Smith, Stewart. Adventures in OpenPOWER Firmware. LCA 2016 - video on YouTube

See also

External Links

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