American Megatrends' Aptio© EFI-based Firmware to Ship on Intel's Mobile Customer Reference Boards

Tuesday: April 18, 2006

Editorial Summary:

• AMI is pleased to announce that Intel Mobile Platform Group, has selected Aptio® for its upcoming EFI mobile projects at IDF Beijing
• Santa Rosa, Intel's next generation mobile chipset, will be the first of many Customer Reference Boards to ship with Aptio® firmware
• AMI provides all the necessary tools, training and support for Aptio® firmware

INTEL DEVELOPER FORUM, BEIJING - American Megatrends Inc. (AMI), a leading provider of BIOS and EFI-based firmware, announced today that Intel Mobile Platform Group (MPG) has chosen AMI Aptio® as the firmware solution for its mobile Customer Reference Boards (CRB).

AMI Aptio© is compatible with EFI 1.10, Unified EFI (UEFI) standards, and the Intel Platform Innovation Framework for EFI ("the Framework") which is Intel’s product–strength implementation of EFI and UEFI. The EFI specification defines a new model for the interface between operating systems and platform firmware.

Santa Rosa, Intel’s next generation Centrino© mobile technology, will be the first of many future CRBs from Intel MPG to offer Aptio©, the next generation firmware shipping on Intel mobile customer reference boards. Intel will fully test and validate Aptio© ensuring that it meets Intel’s exacting standards for product quality, power and heat management and for compliance with EFI and Framework standards. This collaboration between Intel MPG and AMI will raise the bar for EFI firmware.

With AMI Aptio©, users get the best of both worlds: compliance with the emerging standard EFI and Intel’s architectural Framework implementation.

AMI Aptio© is also available for desktop, server and embedded solutions, allowing Aptio© customers to use one common core for all platforms.

AMI Aptio© offers several benefits, which were the primary drivers for MPG’s selection of Aptio© for its reference boards. AMI Aptio© expands and enriches the Framework, providing a complete and stable firmware solution for future mobile systems. Aptio© offers a wide set of mobile features, such as enhanced embedded controller interface, digital thermal sensors, hot key support and quick boot. Aptio© supports the latest advanced mobile features of Intel’s next generation mobile chipsets, including innovative power saving technologies, advanced display options and dual–core processors.

In developing Aptio©, AMI has relied on the decades of customer experience in the BIOS world to simplify the process by which customers can migrate from legacy to the EFI world.

To simplify the development process, Aptio© comes with a fully integrated development environment, Visual eBIOS (VeB), AMI’s highly successful and innovative development environment for AMIBIOS©8. In fact anyone who has used VeB for AMIBIOS© should be able to switch to VeB for Aptio© very quickly. VeB simplifies porting, allowing for a faster transition from legacy BIOS to EFI and from one EFI platform to another. The modular architecture of Aptio© allows developers to group, manage and graphically represent logically related drivers and modules for more intuitive platform firmware development. In addition to VeB, AMI also offers a complete suite of tools and utilities on par with what is available to AMIBIOS©8 customers:

• OEM/ODM firmware development kit, complemented by the easy–to–use Visual eBIOS (VeB) graphical development environment
• AMI Debug for EFI, offering source–level application and firmware debugging capabilities
• A rich pre–boot application suite, including non–destructive recovery tools and in–depth diagnostics
• Compatibility Support Module (CSM), for compatibility with legacy BIOS runtime code
• Manufacturing utilities such as OEM Change Logo, MMTools, DMIEdit and AMIBCP
• AMI TSE, an easily customized HHI setup engine.

"Anyone who has grappled with the current releases of EFI from third parties and has been dazed by the myriad of files, directories and drivers, will be able to immediately appreciate the advantage Aptio© brings to the table," said Mike Shields, AMIBIOS© sales manager for APAC. "The Aptio© solution is easier to work with than other implementations because it has far fewer directories, fewer files and fewer drivers. The code is tightly written resulting in a smaller ROM size. The AMI Aptio© architecture is well organized, so engineers find it intuitive and require less training time. Aptio© drastically reduces overall build time to about a minute. Any engineer who has worked with firmware and BIOS will attest to the significant ease–of–use benefit of AMI Aptio©."

"AMI is committed to providing companies an effortless transition to Aptio© firmware," said Srivatsan Ramachandran, AMI’s director of business development. "AMI will provide Intel with worldwide support including on–site development centers in the U.S., India and Taiwan to help smooth the transition from legacy BIOS to EFI."

About AMI : Founded in 1985 and known worldwide for AMIBIOS®, American Megatrends Inc. (AMI) supplies state-of-the-art hardware, software, and utilities to top-tier manufacturers of desktop, server, mobile and embedded systems. AMI’s industry leading Aptio® V UEFI BIOS firmware, innovative StorTrends® Network Storage hardware and software products and MegaRAC® remote server management solutions continue to garner industry acclaim and awards around the world. In line with the diversity of its technology and product line, AMI is a member of a number of industry associations and standards groups, such as the Unified EFI Forum (UEFI), the Intel® Intelligent Systems Alliance and the Trusted Computing Group (TCG). Headquartered in Norcross, Georgia, AMI has locations in the U.S., China, Germany, India, Japan, Korea and Taiwan to better serve its customers.

For more information on AMI, its products or services, call 1-800-U-BUY-AMI or visit www.ami.com.

Statement of Liability: © 2013 American Megatrends Inc. Product specifications are subject to change without notice. Products mentioned may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. All rights reserved. No warranties are made, either express or implied, with regard to the contents of this work, its merchantability or fitness for a particular use. This publication contains proprietary information, which is protected by copyright. American Megatrends reserves the right to update, change and/or modify this product at anytime.

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