This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Common Firmware Environment" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Common Firmware Environment (CFE), sometimes pronounced as 'cafe',^[1] is a firmware interface and bootloader developed by Broadcom for 32-bit and 64-bit system-on-a-chip systems. It is intended to be a flexible toolkit of CPU initialization and bootstrap code for use on embedded processors (typically running on MIPS32/64 instruction set CPUs found in Broadcom SoCs). It is roughly analogous to the BIOS on the IBM PC platform. Its source-code is available on Open source license from Broadcom. Common embedded system alternatives include Das U-Boot.

Its main responsibility is to initialize CPUs, caches, memory controllers, and peripherals required early on in the power on stage. It typically incorporates several built-in device drivers for SoC peripherals, it has several console choices, including serial ports, ROM emulators, JTAG, etc. Just like in other boot loaders environment, variables are commonly configured in persistent storage to create auto boot options. It also has support for network bootstrap.

Platforms

CFE is used in at least some of the following wireless router platforms:

• Apple Airport
• Asus routers
• Buffalo AirStation
• Linksys WRT54G series
• Netgear

CFE is used in the following home entertainment platforms:

• LG Smart TV
• LG Smart Blu-ray Players
• Samsung Smart TV
• Samsung Blu-ray Players

CFE is also used in the Amiga NG platform AmigaOne X1000

See also

• Comparison of boot loaders
• Das U-Boot

References

External links

• https://docs.broadcom.com/docs/1211168562172
• http://www.broadcom.com/support/license.php?file=cfe-1.4.2-src.tar.bz2
• http://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/techref/bootloader/cfe

This computing article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e