U-Boot 2025.07: New Horizons with Apple M1/M2 Support & exFAT

Version 2025.07 of U-Boot—the open-source bootloader widely used in embedded systems across diverse architectures—has been officially released. This update introduces support for new platforms and, notably, adds compatibility with the exFAT file system.

Among the highlights, this release brings initial support for Apple’s M1 and M2 system-on-chips. Enhancements have also been made to the support for platforms such as Raspberry Pi, NXP i.MX8/i.MX9, AMD Versal, NVIDIA Tegra, Rockchip RK3528 and RK3576, STM32, StarFive, TI K3, Marvell, SoCFPGA, Atmel sama series, Qualcomm, and Renesas R-Car. The list is not exhaustive, but it underscores the breadth of architectural support.

A new feature introduced in this version is the “uthreads” mechanism, inspired by the “bthreads” concept from the barebox bootloader. These are lightweight threads implemented within U-Boot to improve concurrency and efficiency.

U-Boot now supports the exFAT file system, significantly enhancing its ability to boot from large-capacity external storage devices.

The EFI boot subsystem has seen further refinements, along with updates across a range of components including DFU (Device Firmware Update), networking stacks, MMC, SCSI, I2C, and others. Many of these changes focus on improving overall code quality and maintainability.

Continuous integration testing of new builds has been expanded to cover a broader array of platforms via QEMU, further reinforcing the reliability and robustness of U-Boot.