Every device has a bootloader; these are nothing but the first piece of software that gets loaded and executed after the mask ROM bootloader. They are primarily put in place to load parts of an operating system into the memory and ensure the system is loaded in the defined state for the kernel. Some bootloaders have a two-step approach; in those scenarios, only step one will know how to load the second step, while the second step will provide access to file systems and so on. The following is the list of bootloaders we have encountered during a product evaluation so far:

• U-Boot: Stands for Universal boot—it is open source and pretty much available in all the architecture (68k, ARM, Blackfin, MicroBlaze, MIPS, Nios, SuperH, PPC, RISC-V, and x86).
• RedBoot: Uses the eCos real-time operating system hardware abstraction layer to provide bootstrap firmware for embedded systems.
• BareBox: Is another open-source, primary boot loader used in embedded devices. It supports RM, Blackfin, MIPS, Nios II, and x86.