What Are Board Support
Packages (BSPs)?

Board support packages, or BSPs, are software components that provide an interface between an operating system (OS) and the hardware of a specific computer board. They are typically used in embedded systems, which are computer systems that are integrated into other devices or products.

BSPs include a variety of software elements that work together to enable the OS to interact with the hardware of the specific board:

• Device drivers: These key components of BSPs provide the interface between the OS and the hardware devices on the board. Device drivers allow the OS to access the various hardware components, such as the CPU, memory, and peripherals.
• Boot loaders: Small programs that run when the board is powered on, boot loaders are responsible for loading the OS and other software components. They also provide a way to update the software on the board by allowing new software images to be loaded over a network or other interface.

• Board-specific initialization routines: Responsible for configuring the hardware of the board, such as setting up memory or initializing peripherals, these routines ensure that the hardware is configured so that the OS can run correctly.

BSPs are crucial to helping ensure the stable and proper functioning of embedded systems.

Creating and maintaining a BSP for a specific hardware platform requires understanding the hardware and OS, creating the BSP, testing and validating the BSP, and providing support and maintenance.

The process begins with an understanding of the hardware platform and its capabilities, including a detailed understanding of the processor, memory, peripheral devices, and other system components. The BSP developer must also have a good understanding of the OS that will be running on the platform.

Once the hardware and OS are understood, the next step is to create the BSP. This involves writing device drivers for the various components of the system, such as the processor, memory, and peripheral devices. These drivers provide the interface between the OS and the hardware, allowing the OS to access and control the hardware.

The BSP also typically includes other components, such as system initialization code, memory management code, and power management code. These components are responsible for setting up the system and ensuring that it is running correctly.

After the BSP has been created, it must be tested and validated on the target hardware platform. This includes testing the BSP with different configurations of the hardware and different versions of the OS. The BSP developer must also ensure that the BSP is stable and reliable and that it meets the requirements of the system.

Once the BSP has been tested and validated, it is released to customers or end users. The BSP developer must provide support and maintenance for the BSP, including bug fixes and updates as necessary.

The development environment for a BSP includes a range of tools for building, debugging, and testing the BSP. These can include a cross-compiler, which is used to compile the BSP for the target hardware platform, and a debugger, which allows developers to step through the BSP code and identify any issues.

In addition to these tools, the BSP development environment includes a range of libraries and frameworks that are used to build the BSP. These include device drivers, communication protocols, and other software components that are needed to support the hardware platform.

The BSP development environment also includes an integrated development environment (IDE), which is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. IDEs usually provide a code editor, a compiler or interpreter, build automation tools, and a debugger.

One of the most popular BSP development environments comes from the Yocto Project, an open source collaboration that provides templates, tools, and methods for creating custom Linux-based systems for embedded products regardless of the hardware architecture.

The Most Extensive Range of BSPs in the Industry

The close relationships Wind River^® holds with silicon vendors and hardware manufacturers enable us to offer ready-to-use BSPs to streamline development efforts. Our deep list of supported architectures includes Arm^®, Power, Intel^®, and RISC-V, allowing you to spend less time shopping for compatible components and more time developing products.

BSP Query Tool

Wind River BSPs are software kits that make it quick and easy to use our OSes with nearly any type of hardware device. With hundreds of options available, you can use our BSP query tool to browse our BSPs according to processor architecture, operating system, or hardware vendor.