EFI Firmware FAQ

What is UEFI?

UEFI, or Unified EFI, is the next iteration of the EFI standard. As of 2010, the UEFI standard was maintained and developed by a group of companies that participate in the "UEFI Forum." These companies include Apple, AMD, Dell, Intel, Microsoft, and Lenovo. The goal for UEFI was to improve its capacity as an architecture independent firmware interface. The members of the "UEFI Forum" have agreed to provide intellectual property required for the development of the standard and to not charge for use of the standard.

EFI is different than BIOS. BIOS (Basic Input-Output System) originally served as the firmware interface used in PC-AT/XT computers. As the PC market grew, BIOS was expanded to accommodate the grow in PC manufacturers. However, while computer architectures grew in sophistication, BIOS never modernized with it. UEFI provides a modern interface. Additionally, BIOS was specifically designed for x86 processor architectures. However, EFI and UEFI are independent of any specific architecture.

Many companies that compete with each other in the sales market (Microsoft and Apple, AMD and Intel) are cooperating in the development of the UEFI standard. However, they all share an interest in improving the operating system - firmware interface. Even though interest in the EFI standard was growing before the "Forum" was formed, the companies believed that getting EFI (what would become UEFI) widespread adoption requires management by the industry itself.

As of 2010, UEFI will not replace BIOS entirely. The UEFI standard does not specify how a computer will self configure after powering up. The firmware for some devices requires a central standard to specify how this will be done. BIOS, however, does specify how these processes will be executed after start up. Consequently, the firmware for some devices will continue to use BIOS. For this reason, UEFI can be implemented in place of, or on top of, BIOS installations