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EMBEDDED · SOFTWARE

What Is a Board Support Package (BSP)?

A board support package (BSP) is the low-level software that lets an operating system run on a particular board: the bootloader, kernel, device drivers and hardware configuration such as the device tree. For NVIDIA Jetson, the BSP is Jetson Linux, delivered as part of JetPack, and custom carrier boards need it adapted to their hardware.

01

The Short Answer

An operating system knows nothing about the specific chips, ports and peripherals on a board until the BSP tells it. When a carrier board adds its own interfaces, or a capture card is fitted, the BSP needs matching drivers and configuration, and those have to be updated for each new release.

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    Bootloader Starts the hardware and loads the operating system.
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    Kernel The core of the OS, built for the processor.
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    Device drivers Let the OS use the board’s interfaces and add-on cards.
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    Hardware description The device tree that maps the board’s components.
02

Why It Matters

When the BSP moves to a new release, drivers for custom hardware have to move with it. In our drone detection case study we created drivers for the current BSP in the customer’s software stack and help them migrate to new NVIDIA releases; our Jetson carrier boards cover the hardware side.