Arm SystemReady Standard Shifts Device Tree Ownership From Kernel to Firmware
On traditional embedded Linux products, the device tree describing board hardware is bundled with the kernel and maintained by BSP teams, but Arm's SystemReady Devicetree certification band is changing that model. Certified platforms must now have firmware supply the device tree at boot, with the kernel operating as a standard UEFI payload receiving hardware descriptions via the EFI Configuration Table. The shift is already in effect on compliant platforms, governed by the Embedded Base Boot Requirements (EBBR) specification, whose latest revision is version 2.4.0 dated March 11, 2026. This change has practical consequences for product teams: board description ownership moves to firmware developers, hardware defects require signed firmware updates rather than kernel patches, and products must include a functioning firmware update mechanism via UEFI UpdateCapsule(). However, the compatibility rules needed to ensure firmware-provided device trees remain stable across kernel versions are still incomplete, and EBBR itself acknowledges this gap.
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