Not All Of The IBM POWER10 Firmware Is Currently Open-Source

Power E1080 server as their first in a new family of servers based on the IBM POWER10 processor. Sadly though not all of the POWER10 firmware is open-source.

While POWER9 was big for open-source fans with the formation of the OpenPOWER Foundation and Raptor Computing Systems designing POWER9-based systems that are fully open-source down to schematics and the motherboard firmware, the same can't be currently said about POWER10.

Raptor Computing Systems previously hinted that it might not be all rosy for POWER10 when it comes to open-source and at least for the initial rollout, it does appear to be that way.

While we applaud the overall extent of source code available for the #POWER10 firmware stack, two key P10-specific firmware components remain closed source at this time. The first is the off-chip OMI DRAM bridge, and the second is the on-chip PPE I/O processor (links below).

— Raptor Computing Sys (@RaptorCompSys) September 8, 2021

While IBM has published a lot of the POWER10 firmware as open-source, remaining closed for at least the time being is their off-chip OMI DRAM bridge and their on-chip PPE I/O processor.

Due to being blocked by not having open-source firmware in those areas, Raptor isn't currently working on any POWER10-based designs but hopes that with time IBM will open-source the remaining components.

The OMI bridge firmware is binary only and the PPE I/O processor is also distributed as just compiled firmware.

At least the POWER10 firmware stack is more open than some other platforms, but hopefully they will be able to make it fully open-source in the not too distant future so Raptor Computing Systems and others can deliver fully open-source next-generation, high performance servers.