coreboot is an Open Source project aimed at replacing the proprietary BIOS (firmware) found in most computers. coreboot performs a little bit of hardware initialization and then executes additional boot logic, called a payload.

With the separation of hardware initialization and later boot logic, coreboot can scale from specialized applications that run directly from firmware, run operating systems in flash, load custom bootloaders, or implement firmware standards, like PC BIOS services or UEFI. This allows for systems to only include the features necessary in the target application, reducing the amount of code and flash space required.

In general, GSoC projects related to coreboot tend to revolve around hardware-related topics as well as development infrastructure. The coreboot organization also acts as a patron for some other closely related projects in the same field, namely flashrom and SerialICE.

flashrom is a utility for identifying, reading, writing, verifying and erasing flash chips. It is designed to flash BIOS/EFI/coreboot/firmware/optionROM images on mainboards, network/graphics/storage controller cards, and various other programmer devices.

SerialICE is a BIOS/Firmware debugging tool. It allows you to run and observe BIOS images such as coreboot written for real hardware in Qemu for debugging purposes. Thanks to Qemu's compelling feature set, it's also possible to debug this BIOS code with GNU GDB.