Greetings everyone,
I came across the following paragraph while reading the 'Firmware Partition Filesystem' chapter from EBBR v2.2.0 and I would like to clarify my understanding: Where possible, firmware images and data should be stored in a filesystem. Firmware can be stored either in a dedicated firmware partition, or in certain circumstances in the UEFI System Partition (ESP). Using a filesystem makes it simpler to manage multiple firmware files and makes it possible for a single disk image to contain firmware for multiple platforms.
Dedicated firmware partitions should be formatted with a FAT filesystem as defined in UEFI ยง 13.3 File System Format. Dedicated firmware partitions should use the same /FIRMWARE directory hierarchy. OS tools shall ignore dedicated firmware partitions, and shall not attempt to use a dedicated firmware partition as an ESP
Questions: 1. Does the above paragraph mean that, if the device allows, all firmware binaries (TF-A, U-Boot, and some others) must be stored in a dedicated firmware partition formatted with a FAT filesystem and GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk layout? 2. If so, would this also mean that, where possible, the BootROM or a (first stage) bootloader running before TF-A should have GPT and FAT support embedded support to load one of the TF-A stages (BL1/BL2)?
Regards, Ghennadi