EDK2 UEFI firmware for Rockchip RK3588 platforms

This repository contains an UEFI firmware implementation based on EDK2 for various RK3588 boards.

Supported platforms

Supported OSes

In ACPI mode

OS	Version	Tested/supported hardware	Notes
Windows	11	Status
NetBSD	10	Display, UART, USB, PCIe (incl. NVME), SATA, eMMC, GMAC Ethernet
VMware ESXi Arm Fling	>= 1.12	Display, USB	* PCIe devices will hang at boot, need to disable in settings or leave the ports empty. * GMAC Ethernet gets detected but does not work.
Linux	tested Ubuntu 22.04, kernel 5.15.0-75-generic	Display, UART, USB, PCIe (incl. NVME & Ethernet), SATA	For full hardware functionality, use a kernel with RK3588 support and switch to Device Tree mode.

Note

ACPI support is only being developed and tested against Windows. There are no plans to further improve functionality for other OSes. Consider using Device Tree instead (where applicable, for instance Linux).

In Device Tree mode

OS	Version	Tested/supported hardware	Notes
Rockchip SDK Linux	5.10 legacy, tested with Armbian rk3588-live-iso	Platform-dependent, most peripherals work.	If using a different kernel, see Device Tree configuration.

Supported peripherals in UEFI

Note

Applicable to all platforms unless otherwise noted.

Only devices relevant to the firmware itself (not OS) are listed below.

Device	Status	Notes
USB 3 / 2.0 / 1.1	🟢 Working	Host-mode only, USB 3 devices connected to a Type-C port only work in one orientation.
PCIe 3.0 (RK3588)	🟢 Working	No bifurcation support
PCIe 2.1	🟢 Working
SATA	🟢 Working
SD/eMMC	🟢 Working
HDMI output	🟡 Partial	Single display with mode limited at 1080p 60 Hz
DisplayPort output (USB-C)	🟡 Partial	Mode fixed at 1080p 60 Hz, only works in one orientation of the Type-C port. Some displays may not work regardless.
eDP output	🟡 Partial	Disabled, requires manual configuration depending on the platform and panel.
DSI output	🔴 Not working
GMAC Ethernet	🔴 Not working	Only brought-up for OS usage
Realtek PCIe Ethernet	🟢 Working	Some platforms don't have MAC addresses set, networking may not work in that case.
UART	🟢 Working	UART2 console available at 1500000 baud rate
GPIO	🟡 Partial	Only read, write and alt function supported
I2C	🟢 Working
SPI	🟢 Working
PWM	🟢 Working
SPI NOR Flash	🟢 Working
HYM8563 real-time clock	🟢 Working
RNG	🟢 Working
Cooling fan	🟢 Working	Supported on most platforms. Fan connector where present, otherwise available at the GPIO header for 3-pin PWM fans (do not connect 2-pin fans there!): * Orange Pi 5: `GPIO4_B2` * Indiedroid Nova: `GPIO4_B4`
Status LED	🟢 Working
Voltage regulators (RK806, RK860)	🟢 Working
FUSB302 USB Type-C Controller	🔴 Not working	Required for PD negotiation and connector orientation switching

Getting started

1. Requirements

One of the supported devices.
Storage for the firmware: SPI NOR flash (included with some devices), SD card or eMMC.
Quality power supply that can provide at least 15 W. Depending on the peripherals you use, more may be needed.

Note: on Mixtile Blade 3, a fixed voltage higher than 5V must be supplied. The board cannot power any external peripherals if the input voltage is just 5V. USB-PD negotiation is not supported by firmware.
HDMI or DisplayPort (USB-C) screen capable of at least 1080p 60Hz.
Optionally, if display is not available or for debugging purposes, an UART adapter capable of 1500000 baud rate (e.g. USB CH340, CP2104).

2. Download the firmware image

The latest version can be obtained from https://github.com/edk2-porting/edk2-rk3588/releases.

If your platform is not yet supported, using an image meant for another device is not recommended. Although they are generally similar, voltage setup can happen to be different and you may risk damaging the board. External peripherals are unlikely to work either.

3. Flash the firmware

UEFI can be flashed to either a SPI NOR flash, SD card or eMMC module:

For removable SD or eMMC (easiest), you can simply use balenaEtcher, RPi Imager or dd.
For SPI NOR or soldered eMMC, instructions can be found at: https://wiki.radxa.com/Rock5/install/spi.

In short, you can flash the image from Linux booted on the device or by using RKDevTool on another computer. The latter requires entering Maskrom mode on the device. The way to do this slightly varies across platforms, refer to your vendor documentation.

Warning: these operations will erase data on the storage device. Make a backup first!

If you wish to have both UEFI and an OS on the same SD or eMMC device: flash UEFI first, then create any additional partitions without touching the first, reserved one. Steps for updating the firmware in this case can be found here.

Note: Using SPI NOR (if present) is recommeded, as it leaves the other storage options free for other purposes. Additionally, SD/eMMC will limit the firmware's ability to access its own storage (variable store) when an OS is running. This feature is mostly used by OS installers to create the boot menu options, it is not mandatory.

4. Connect peripherals and power on the device

If the flashing process has been done correctly, you should see the status LED blinking (if present), and shortly after, the platform's boot logo with a progress bar at the bottom on the connected display.

At this stage, you can press Esc to enter the firmware setup, F1 to launch the UEFI Shell, or, provided you also have an UEFI bootloader/app on a storage device, you can let the system automatically run that, which is the default behavior if no action is taken.

Check the Supported OSes and Supported peripherals in UEFI sections to see what's currently possible with this firmware.

Also check the configuration options described below, some of which may need to be changed depending on the OS used.

If you experience any issues, please see the Troubleshooting section.

Configuration settings

The UEFI provides a few configuration options, like CPU frequency, PCIe/SATA selection for an M.2 port, fan control, etc. These can be viewed and changed using the UI configuration menu (under Device Manager -> Rockchip Platform Configuration).

Configuration through the user interface is fairly straightforward and help/navigation information is provided around the menus.

Tips

CPU clocks are set to 816 MHz (boot default) on platforms without a cooling fan included. If you have adequate cooling, go to the configuration menu -> CPU Performance and set all Cluster Presets to Maximum.

Device Tree configuration

For rich Linux support, it is recommended to enable Device Tree mode. You can do so by going to the configuration menu -> ACPI / Device Tree and setting Config Table Mode to Device Tree.

By default, the firmware installs a DTB compatible with (most) Rockchip SDK Linux 5.10 legacy kernel variants.

Custom Device Tree Blob (DTB) override and overlays

It is also possible to provide a custom DTB and overlays. To enable this, go to the configuration menu -> ACPI / Device Tree and set Support DTB override & overlays to Enabled.

The firmware will now look for overrides in the partition of a selected boot option / OS loader. In most cases this will be the first FAT32 EFI System Partition.

The base DTB must be located at \dtb\base\<PLATFORM-DT-NAME>.dtb.
The overlays can be placed in:
- \dtb\overlays - will be applied first, regardless of the platform.
- \dtb\overlays\<PLATFORM-DT-NAME> - will be applied only to the specified platform.
and must have the .dtbo extension.

The paths above are relative to the root of the file system. That is, the dtb directory must not be placed in a sub-directory.

<PLATFORM-DT-NAME> can be:

Name	Platform
`rk3588-rock-5b`	ROCK 5B
`rk3588s-rock-5a`	ROCK 5A
`rk3588-rock-5-itx`	ROCK 5 ITX
`rk3588s-orangepi-5`	Orange Pi 5
`rk3588-orangepi-5-plus`	Orange Pi 5 Plus
`rk3588s-9tripod-linux`	Indiedroid Nova
`rk3588-firefly-aio-3588q`	Firefly AIO-3588Q
`itx-3588j`	Firefly ITX-3588J
`roc-rk3588s-pc`	ROC-RK3588S-PC / Station M3
`rk3588-blueberry-edge-v12-linux`	R58X (v1.2)
`rk3588-blueberry-minipc-linux`	R58 Mini
`rk3588s-khadas-edge2`	Edge2
`rk3588-blade3-v101-linux`	Blade 3
`rk3588-nanopc-t6`	NanoPC T6
`rk3588s-nanopi-r6c`	NanoPi R6C
`rk3588s-nanopi-r6s`	NanoPi R6S
`rk3588-hinlink-h88k`	H88K

In the absence of a custom base DTB override, the overlays are applied on top of the firmware-provided DTB.

The firmware applies some fix-ups to its own DTB depending on the user settings (e.g. PCIe/SATA/USB selection, making SATA overlays redundant). These fix-ups are not applied to a custom base DTB - overlays must be used instead.

If the application of an overlay fails (e.g. due to it being invalid in regard to the base DTB), all overlays are discarded, including those that got applied up to that point.

If the custom base DTB is invalid, the firmware-provided one will be passed to the OS instead.

This entire process is logged to the serial console. There's currently no other way to see potential errors.

Updating the firmware

If the storage is only used for UEFI and nothing else, simply download the latest image and flash it as described in the Getting started section.

If it is also used by an OS and has additional partitions, only part of the image needs to be applied. This can be done with the dd tool:

dd if=FIRMWARE.img of=DESTINATION bs=512 skip=64 seek=64 conv=notrunc

FIRMWARE.img is the firmware image for your platform. E.g. edge2_UEFI_Release_v0.8.img.

DESTINATION is the destination storage that you wish to update the firmware on. E.g. /dev/sdb.

Here we skip the GPT and copy the firmware starting at offset 0x8000 (64 blocks * 512 bytes block size) until its end. See Flash layout for more details.

Troubleshooting

Important

First of all, make sure your device can only possibly load the UEFI firmware and nothing else.

U-Boot must not present on either SPI NOR, SD or eMMC, otherwise it could take precedence and cause hidden issues.

Below you can find some basic debugging information. If none of this helps, please see the Advanced troubleshooting section.

Meaning of the Status LED

If your device has an activity LED, the firmware will blink it in different patterns to indicate the current system status.

Immediately after power on, the LED should start pulsing quickly. This indicates that the firmware is initializing.
After initialization (usually takes less than 5 seconds), the LED will switch to a short pulsing every 2 seconds or so. This indicates that the firmware is ready and waiting for user action or the countdown to boot automatically. The display output should also be enabled at this point.
When the firmware boots an OS and is about to exit, the LED will stop blinking.

If the LED:

does not light up after power on, this means the firmware has not managed to load up at all.
gets stuck in either on or off state after blinking a few times and never recovers, something went wrong and the firmware has crashed or frozen.

Note that it is only expected to stop as described at point 3) above.

Common issues

Nothing shows up on the screen

Make sure you've flashed the firmware correctly and that it is the version designed for your device. In most cases this is the culprit.

Assuming the firmware loads fine:

The display must support a resolution of at least 1080p at 60 Hz.
If you're using HDMI and the system has two ports, only one will work. Try both.
If you're using USB-C to DisplayPort, only one orientation of the USB-C connector will work. Check both.

If you are not able to get any display output, the only way to interact with UEFI is via the serial console.

Configuration settings do not get saved

This has been observed in cases where U-Boot was still present on another boot device (SD, eMMC or SPI NOR). This is not a supported scenario. The solution is to unplug or erase devices that may have other firmware on them.

What's happening:

Board loads U-Boot from a storage device that has higher priority (let's say eMMC).
That U-Boot image in turn loads UEFI and its settings from another device with lower priority (let's say SD).
UEFI cannot accurately determine to which device it belongs. The parameter used to verify this points to eMMC (U-Boot), while UEFI actually got loaded from SD.
Consequently, UEFI mistakenly saves the user settings to eMMC. On reboot, U-Boot loads UEFI and the original/unchanged settings from SD and the cycle repeats.

USB 3 devices do not work

Try a different port.
If you're using USB-C, 3.0 devices will only work in one orientation of the connector. Check both.
Make sure the power supply and cable are good.

Networking does not work

Only Realtek PCIe and USB controllers are supported. Native Gigabit provided by RK3588 isn't.
Some boards with Realtek NICs do not have a MAC address set at factory and will show-up as being all zeros in UEFI, possibly preventing the adapter from obtaining an IP address.

You can easily fix this by writing the MAC address manually:
1. Boot into Linux and open up a terminal. The commands below apply to Armbian with legacy kernel.
2. Install the headers for your kernel version:
```
sudo apt install -y linux-headers-legacy-rk35xx
```
3. Clone Realtek PGTool and build the driver:
```
git clone https://github.com/redchenjs/rtnicpg
cd rtnicpg
make
```
4. Unload all Realtek modules and load the driver built above:
```
sudo rmmod pgdrv
sudo ./pgload.sh
```
  Note: make sure there aren't any remaining Realtek modules loaded after this, except for the new pgdrv.
  If you have r8125 built-in, you might have to reboot with initcall_blacklist=rtl8125_init_module as a kernel parameter (in Grub).
5. Burn a MAC address into the eFuses:
  
  For only one NIC:
```
sudo ./rtnicpg-aarch64-linux-gnu /efuse /nodeid 00E04C001234
```
  For two or more:
```
sudo ./rtnicpg-aarch64-linux-gnu /efuse /# 1 /nodeid 00E04C001234
sudo ./rtnicpg-aarch64-linux-gnu /efuse /# 2 /nodeid 00E04C001235
```
  00E04C001234 is an example address. You can generate random and unique ones using: https://www.macvendorlookup.com/mac-address-generator
Note: the number of eFuses is limited, thus MAC addresses can only be changed a few times.

Advanced troubleshooting

The firmware will log detailed information to the serial console when using a debug version. See the release notes for details on how to obtain this version.

The debug image needs to be flashed in place of the existing one.
Connect the UART2 RX, TX and GND pins on your device (check vendor documentation) to the UART adapter on your other computer.
Open up a serial terminal (PuTTY on Windows, stty on Linux) set to 1500000 baud rate and 8n1 (default).
Power on the device.

You should be able to see many debug messages being printed to the console. If that's not the case, double check the connections (swap RX/TX), make sure the adapter is functional and configured correctly.

The logs should give an insight of what's going on. If you need help analyzing them, feel free to open an issue ticket.

Reporting issues

You can open issues related to UEFI at https://github.com/edk2-porting/edk2-rk3588/issues.

Please include as many details as possible: expected behavior, what actually happens, steps to reproduce, serial logs, etc.

Also check the existing issues in case yours might be already reported.

Building

The firmware can only be built on Linux currently. For Windows use WSL.

Install required packages:

For Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt install git gcc g++ build-essential gcc-aarch64-linux-gnu iasl python3-pyelftools uuid-dev

For Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -Syu
sudo pacman -S git base-devel gcc dtc aarch64-linux-gnu-binutils aarch64-linux-gnu-gcc aarch64-linux-gnu-glibc python python-pyelftools iasl --needed

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/edk2-porting/edk2-rk3588.git --recursive
cd edk2-rk3588

Build UEFI (ROCK 5B for example, check list of platform configs):
```
./build.sh --device rock-5b --release Release # (or Debug)
```

If you get build errors, it is very likely that you're still missing some dependencies. The list of packages above is not complete and depending on the distro you may need to install additional ones. In most cases, looking up the error messages on the internet will point you at the right packages.

Notes

Flash layout

Address	Size	Desc	File
0x00000000	0x00004400	GPT Table	rk3588_spi_nor_gpt.img
0x00008000		IDBlock	idblock.bin
0x00100000	0x00500000	BL33_AP_UEFI FV	${DEVICE}_EFI.itb
0x007C0000	0x00010000	NV_VARIABLE_STORE
0x007D0000	0x00010000	NV_FTW_WORKING
0x007E0000	0x00010000	NV_FTW_SPARE

The variable store is not included in the flash image, in order to prevent overwriting it and to maintain the user settings across updates.

The firmware expects these exact offsets, do not change them.

Memory Map

Address	Size	Desc	File
0x00040000		ATF	bl31_0x00040000.bin
0x000f0000		ATF	bl31_0x000f0000.bin
0x00200000	0x00500000	UEFI FV	BL33_AP_UEFI.Fv
0x007C0000	0x00010000	NV_VARIABLE_STORE
0x007D0000	0x00010000	NV_FTW_WORKING
0x007E0000	0x00010000	NV_FTW_SPARE
0x08400000		OP-TEE	bl32.bin
0xff100000		ATF (PMU_MEM)	bl31_0xff100000.bin

Licenses

Most of the UEFI code is licensed under the default EDK2 license, which is BSD-2-Clause-Patent.

Some non-critical components have been ported from Rockchip's U-Boot fork and are licensed as GPL-2.0-or-later:

UsbDpPhy
DwDpLib

The files in edk2-rockchip-non-osi are licensed as GPL-2.0-only.

The license for some of the blobs in the misc/rkbin/ directory can be found at: https://github.com/rockchip-linux/rkbin/blob/master/LICENSE. Note that it also contains binaries built from open-source projects such as U-Boot (SPL), Arm Trusted Firmware and OP-TEE, having a different license.

Community

Hack w/ Rockchip Telegram: https://t.me/UEFIonRockchip
Windows on R Discord: https://discord.gg/vjHwptUCa3

Credits & alternatives

This firmware is based on Rockchip's initial efforts at https://gitlab.com/rk3588_linux/rk/uefi-monorepo.

For RK356x, check out the Quartz64-UEFI project at https://github.com/jaredmcneill/quartz64_uefi, from which we also reused some code.

edk2-porting / edk2-rk3588