Introduction

Trusted Firmware-A has just completed the official v2.8 release, tagged across multiple repositories.

Support for the 2021 Architecture extensions, DRTM, FF-A v1.1, EAC0 and, for the first time, compatibility with the newly released TF-RMM! The whole content of the release is described on the respective TF-A (1), TF-A-Tests (2) and Hafnium (3) change-logs. See also the related TF-RMM v0.2.0 documentation (4) and release note (5).

Highlights

• Architecture extensions support:
  • Added Pointer Authentication Extension helper support for QARMA3 (FEAT_PACQARMA3)
  • Partial EL3 support for RNDR/RNDRRS (FEAT_RNG_TRAP)
  • Added SVE fall back if SME not available (FEAT_SME)
  • Support full SVE vector Length (FEAT_SVE)
  • Added Branch Record Buffer Extension (FEAT_BRBE) and Trace Buffer Extension (FEAT_TRBE) under feature detection mechanism
• Added support for DRTM (Dynamic Root of Trust Measurement)
• Various Errata Mitigations for Cortex-A710, A510, X3, X2, A76, A77, A78C, Neoverse N1, N2, GIC-600
• Improved SVE support (as per SMCCCv1.3)
• Ethos-N Driver support for SMMU
• EL3 SPMC feature hardening
• FEAT_RME:
  • Bootflow chain of trust support for AEM FVP
  • Further developments to support TF-RMM upstreaming
  • Tested interop against TF-RMM v0.2.0
• Hafnium SPM & FF-A enablement:
  • FF-A v1.1 additions
    • Partition runtime model and CPU cycle allocation modes
    • Interrupt handling and managed exit flows
    • Memory sharing
    • Framework notifications and indirect messaging
  • Added FF-A console log ABI
  • Added support for GICv3.1 extended INTID ranges
  • Enhanced SVE by supporting up to the maximum vector length 
  • FF-A v1.0 ACS test suite integration in Open CI.
• TF-A Tests support for 4 new platforms (N1SDP, RD-N2, RD-N2-Cfg1, RD-V1)
• TF-A Tests FEAT_RME Realm Payload Testing
• TF-A Tests FF-A v1.1 Secure interrupts Testing
• New cores/platforms support:
  • Arm Hunter ELP CPU support
  • Arm TC2 platform support
  • MediaTek MT8188 platform support
  • Xilinx Versal NET
  • TI K3 J784S4

1. https://trustedfirmware-a.readthedocs.io/en/latest/change-log.html#version-2-8
2. https://trustedfirmware-a-tests.readthedocs.io/en/latest/change-log.html#version-2-8
3. https://review.trustedfirmware.org/plugins/gitiles/hafnium/hafnium/+/HEAD/docs/ChangeLog.md#v2_8
4. https://tf-rmm.readthedocs.io/en/tf-rmm-v0.2.0/
5. https://tf-rmm.readthedocs.io/en/tf-rmm-v0.2.0/about/change-log.html#v0-2-0