fwupd/plugins/superio

SuperIO

This plugin enumerates the various ITE85* SuperIO embedded controller ICs found in many laptops. Vendors wanting to expose the SuperIO functionality will need to add a HwId quirk entry to superio.quirk.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_I/O for more details about SuperIO and what the EC actually does.

Other useful links:

• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/system76/ecflash/master/ec.py
• https://github.com/system76/firmware-update/tree/master/src
• https://github.com/coreboot/coreboot/blob/master/util/superiotool/superiotool.h
• https://github.com/flashrom/flashrom/blob/master/it85spi.c
• http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Ec_specification

GUID Generation

These devices use a custom GUID generated using the SuperIO chipset name:

• SuperIO-$(chipset), for example SuperIO-IT8512

Update Behavior

The firmware is deployed when the device is in normal runtime mode, but it is only activated on machine reboot. The firmware write is normally scheduled to be done very early in the boot process to minimize the chance the EC chip locking up if the user is actually using the keyboard controller.

Vendor ID Security

The vendor ID is set from the baseboard vendor, for example DMI:Star Labs

External interface access

This plugin requires access to raw system memory via inb/outb.