Arm Server Base System Architecture Reference board (sbsa-ref)

While the virt board is a generic board platform that doesn’t match any real hardware the sbsa-ref board intends to look like real hardware. The Server Base System Architecture defines a minimum base line of hardware support and importantly how the firmware reports that to any operating system. It is a static system that reports a very minimal DT to the firmware for non-discoverable information about components affected by the qemu command line (i.e. cpus and memory). As a result it must have a firmware specifically built to expect a certain hardware layout (as you would in a real machine).

It is intended to be a machine for developing firmware and testing standards compliance with operating systems.

Supported devices

The sbsa-ref board supports:

  • A configurable number of AArch64 CPUs

  • GIC version 3

  • System bus AHCI controller

  • System bus EHCI controller

  • CDROM and hard disc on AHCI bus

  • E1000E ethernet card on PCIe bus

  • VGA display adaptor on PCIe bus

  • A generic SBSA watchdog device