Coreboot can now initialize DRAM on Intel Bay Trail SoCs without proprietary binary blobs. Mate Kukri presented the work at the Open Source Firmware Conference, detailing how reverse engineering replaced the manufacturer-supplied black-box code that has historically been the only way to set up memory before memory exists.
The method matters more than the target hardware. Bay Trail is over a decade old and lived mostly in low-end Chromebooks, but the technique uses SerialICE for bus-level debugging and the Unicorn Engine CPU emulator to trace and replicate what the proprietary blob actually does. Kukri framed the talk around applying this approach broadly, not as a one-off fix for an obsolete chip. That distinction is the reason to read this carefully.
Coreboot's openness already enables stranger things: running entirely in CPU cache with no RAM initialized at all, or booting DOOM from firmware. The harder goal is full blob elimination, which requires Libreboot, coreboot's stricter derivative. The OSFC 2026 talk archive will host the full presentation for those who missed it in person.
[READ ORIGINAL →]