Earlier this month, AMD introduced some coding into the main Coreboot, offering support for a few different SoCs (system-on-chips). The new updates provide future enablement for Mendocino and Zen 4 Phoenix SoCs. However, the codenames chosen are somewhat unexpected, as they are the names of three "Sabrina, The Teenage Witch" characters — Morgana, Glinda, and Sabrina.
AMD Coreboot implements could usher in Mendocino & Phoenix open-source updates
Interesting how Archie Comics characters appear in the unlikeliest of places.
If you grew up in the 90s and early 2000s, you might remember the show "Sabrina, The Teenage Witch," which was based on the Archie Comics magazine of the same name. Recently, the characters saw a revival on Netflix (now defunct) and were moved to "Riverdale" on the CW.
Michael Larabel of Phoronix has discovered the link to the three nicknames AMD uses for upcoming APU and SoC enablement, which gives us a better look at the future additions added to Coreboot over the last month.
Larabel notes that the header files that the codename Sabrina is connected to mention Chrome's operating system and Chromebooks. This implementation is beneficial for AMD as Chromebooks utilizing AMD chips have been quite successful for the company. Introducing open-source firmware options for the company's Chromebook partners will allow for more adaptability of the systems.
Glinda and Sabrina could also be linked to Mendocino, the CPU series used for more budget-line laptops and handheld systems. The enablement of Glinda is relatively new to Coreboot as Sabrina was first introduced in the first few weeks of this month, and the two will further assist partners in making cost-friendly devices and low-cost systems backed by AMD.
Unfortunately, outside of Sabrina being tied to Mendocino, Morgana and Glinda are still the two unclear codenames used by the AMD family. Morgana, however, could spell implementation of the Zen 4 Phoenix SoCs. But it could also introduce the successor to Barcelo.
Glinda, recently updated yesterday, placed 5.4K lines of code into the initial code, which does not count the code already introduced for Morgana and Sabrina. In addition to the Coreboot enablement, a section of Glinda "blobs" were added to the PSP support and video BIOS binary, reports Larabel.
