by Vincent Zimmer, Michael Rothman, and Suresh Marisetty, Intel Corporation
ABSTRACT: The need for a boot solution that is low cost, has a small footprint, offers low boot latencies, and is platform-agnostic is an ever growing one that is becoming more urgent with the increased ubiquity of consumer electronics. This also creates opportunities for CE device manufacturers to provide creative solutions of their own, making their products more competitive and unique. The challenge that remains to be addressed is a single boot firmware solution that can boot both shrinkwrap operating systems that require PC compatibility and embedded operating systems. There are multiple challenges to be addressed with innovative solutions such as supporting security features, manageability, and a unified storage device, all with the key low boot latency attribute. This article discusses some of the general requirements for a boot solution, as well as a few issues involved in the implementation of such a solution.

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