Aura Firmware

Aura, the Genesi Firmware offering, implements a run-time, re-entrant hardware abstraction layer supporting the industry standard IEEE 1275 (OpenFirmware) and UEFI firmware specifications, 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 Power Architecture and ARM hardware suppliers, up to and including a Linux desktop, based on our firmware.

Features

  • IEEE 1275 or UEFI Firmware solution
  • Aura Run-Time Services
  • Hardware-dependant features abstracted from Firmware using HAL
  • x86 Option ROM emulator to provide plugin AGP/PCI/PCI-Express graphics card functionality where needed

Hardware Abstraction Layer and Run-Time Services

The hardware abstraction layer as implemented allows new hardware designs to be rapidly supported by the Firmware. Required hardware initialization 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 high-level firmware code to support new boards, improving time-to-market.

This approach supports both IEEE1275 and UEFI standards and provides additional operating system support for "virtualized" serial ports, high-resolution timers, interrupt controllers, graphics adapters and power management.

x86 Video BIOS Emulation

Genesi's Firmware includes an x86 CPU/BIOS-level emulator enabling standard graphics adapters to be enabled and operated without the use of customised and chipset-specific graphics initialization code implemented at the firmware level or operating system driver level.