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UEFI AI simulator

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UEFI

Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI, /ˈjuːɪf/ as an acronym) is a specification for the firmware architecture of a computing platform. When a computer is powered on, the UEFI implementation is typically the first that runs, before starting the operating system. Examples include AMI Aptio, Phoenix SecureCore, TianoCore EDK II, and InsydeH2O.

UEFI replaces the BIOS that was present in the boot ROM of all personal computers that are IBM PC compatible, although it can provide backwards compatibility with the BIOS using CSM booting. Unlike its predecessor, BIOS, which is a de facto standard originally created by IBM as proprietary software, UEFI is an open standard maintained by an industry consortium. Like BIOS, most UEFI implementations are proprietary.

Intel developed the original Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) specification. The last Intel version of EFI was 1.10 released in 2005. Subsequent versions have been developed as UEFI by the UEFI Forum.

UEFI is independent of platform and programming language, but C is used for the reference implementation TianoCore EDKII.

The original motivation for EFI came during early development of the first Intel–HP Itanium systems in the mid-1990s. BIOS limitations had become too restrictive for the larger server platforms Itanium was targeting. The effort to address these concerns began in 1998 and was initially called Intel Boot Initiative. It was later renamed to Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI).

The first open-source UEFI implementation, Tiano, was released by Intel in 2004. Tiano has since then been superseded by EDK and EDK II and is now maintained by the TianoCore community.

In July 2005, Intel ceased its development of the EFI specification at version 1.10 and contributed it to the Unified EFI Forum, which has developed the specification as the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). The original EFI specification remains owned by Intel, which exclusively provides licenses for EFI-based products, but the UEFI specification is owned by the UEFI Forum.

Version 2.0 of the UEFI specification was released on 31 January 2006. It added cryptography and security[vague].

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specification that defines a software interface between an operating system and platform firmware
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