Frequently Asked Questions

Q What hardware platforms support SFI?: Intel's upcoming "Moorestown" platform will support SFI.
Q What Operating Systems support SFI?: Linux will offer the first SFI implementation.
Q Can other platforms and Operating Systems use SFI?: Yes, SFI is freely available to be implemented by any platform or OS. Some of the Linux files are dual licensed GPL/BSD and will be available on this web site to help any other OS that chooses to support SFI.
Q How does SFI relate to ACPI?: While some modern platforms can used SFI instead of using ACPI, SFI is not intended to replace ACPI on general purpose systems. If a platform were to export both SFI and ACPI booted an OS that also supports both, the OS should use the platform's ACPI support and ignore SFI.
Q Why does SFI provide access to a standard ACPI XSDT?: Some industry standard tables are defined in ACPI format, for example the MCFG defined by the PCI SIG. Such tables are referenced via an ACPI XSDT so that their ACPI table signatures are guaranteed to never conflict with SFI table signatures.
Q Why was SFI invented if we already have ACPI?: Some platforms simply do not need the rich feature set provided by ACPI. Also, ACPI requires hardware and BIOS support that may not be practical on some hardware and firmware implementations.
Q How does SFI relate to UEFI?: SFI is independent of UEFI. Platform firmware that supports SFI may or may not also support UEFI. However, for SFI platforms that do not support UEFI, SFI provides an optional method to get to a standard UEFI physical memory map table.
Q How Do I propose changes or extensions to SFI?: Please refer to the community tab.

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