During a presentation at the OCP Open Computer Project Summit in Prague, AMD said it will replace the original AGESA library with the open source AMD openSIL chip initialization library, simplifying the UEFI firmware creation process for server and consumer platforms. The change will be applied to all AMD processors around 2026 -- including server and consumer series.
AMD Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture (AGESA for short) is a startup protocol for initializing system devices on motherboards with AMD64 architecture.
The AGESA software in the AMD motherboard BIOS is responsible for the initialization of the cpu cores, memory, and HyperTransport controllers. AGESA is frequently updated to support new hardware and resolve bugs, making it vulnerable to attacks.
AMD introduced the new AMD openSIL in March of this year as part of AMD's new firmware program. AMD openSIL open-sources the development, architecture and verification process of AMD chip initialization firmware. Compared with AGESA, it is more lightweight, simple, transparent and secure, and can be easily extended.
AMD openSIL is not intended to replace Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), but rather integrates with other host firmware such as coreboot, reboot, and FortiBIOS. Written in standard industry languages, it allows vendors to link their latest hardware support programs to host firmware.
openSIL is currently in the proof-of-concept (POC) stage and is currently compatible with AMD 4th generation EPYC (EPYC) server CPUs and related platforms, and 5th generation EPYC is also included in the POC stage.
AMD intends to make openSIL the default choice for Gen 6 EPYC server CPUs by 2026, while AGESA will be phased out.
For consumer-grade CPUs, since the full version of openSIL will be delayed until 2026, and AMD's latest roadmap shows that the Zen 5 architecture will be released in 2024, it may not be possible to use openSIL until the Zen 6 or even Zen 7 architecture. (AMD 9950X3D?)