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The Genesi Firmware implements the industry standard IEEE 1275 Firmware
specification, with significant added functionality.
These additional features provide cost reduction of systems and faster time-to-market of hardware.
Genesi provides board bring-up services and firmware for other PowerPC hardware suppliers, up to
and including a Linux desktop, based on our firmware.
FEATURES
- IEEE 1275 Firmware solution
- RTAS - Run-Time Abstraction Services
- CHRP compliant
- Hardware-dependant features abstracted from Firmware using HAL
- x86 CPU/BIOS emulator to provide AGP/PCI/PCI-Express graphics card functionality
HARDWARE ABSTRACTION LAYER
The hardware abstraction layer as implemented allows new hardware designs to be rapidly supported by the Firmware. All
hardware initialisation is performed at power-up, providing an environment for the standard firmware to run. The firmware
then uses the HAL functionality to communicate with the hardware, allowing minimal-to-no changes in the actual IEEE 1275 firmware code
to support new boards, improving time-to-market.
X86 VIDEO BIOS EMULATION
Genesi's Firmware includes an x86 CPU/BIOS-level emulator enabling standard graphics adapters
to be used, without the use of customised and chipset-specific graphics initialisation code implemented at the firmware level
or operating system driver level.
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