Intel Extensible Firmware Interface, Specification

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Extensible Firmware Interface Specification
2 12/12/00 Version 1.02
1.1 Overview
This specification is organized as follows:
Table 1-1. Organization of EFI Specification
Chapter/Appendix Description
1. Introduction Provides an overview of the EFI Specification.
2. Overview Describes the major components of EFI, including the boot manager,
firmware core, calling conventions, protocols, and requirements.
3. Services Contains definitions for the fundamental services that are present in an
EFI-compliant system.
4. EFI Image Defines EFI images, a class of files that contain executable code.
5. Device Path Protocol Defines the device path protocol and provides the information needed to
construct and manage device paths in the EFI environment.
6. Device I/O Protocol Defines the Device I/O protocol, which is used by code running in the
EFI boot services environment to access memory and I/O.
7. Console I/O Protocol Defines the Console I/O protocol, which handles input and output of text-
based information intended for the system user while executing in the
EFI boot services environment.
8. Block I/O Protocol Defines the Block I/O protocol, which is used to abstract mass storage
devices to allow code running in the EFI boot services environment to
access the devices without specific knowledge of the type of device or
controller that manages the device.
9. Disk I/O Protocol Defines the Disk I/O protocol, which is used to abstract Block I/O devices
to allow non-block sized I/O operations.
10. File System Protocol Defines the File System protocol, which allows code running in the EFI
boot services environment to obtain file based access to a device.
11. Load File Protocol Defines the Load File protocol, which allows code running in the EFI boot
services environment to find and load other modules of code.
12. Serial I/O Protocol Defines the Serial I/O protocol, which is used to abstract byte stream
devices.
13. Unicode Collation Protocol Defines the Unicode Collation protocol, which is used to allow code
running in the EFI boot services environment to perform lexical
comparison functions on Unicode strings for given languages.
14. PXE Base Code Protocol Defines the PXE Base Code protocol, which is used perform network
boot operations.
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