1. Purpose and scope
The chip design is frozen, but its software is not. Customers report field issues, new vulnerabilities are found in the software and its third-party components, operating systems release new versions, toolchains move on and new silicon steppings need support. The purpose of this stage is to deliver these changes safely to deployed devices, each as a small, validated and signed release, and to decide regularly which versions and branches the company keeps supporting.
Every maintenance release is a small project with the same discipline as the production release: a scope, fixes on the right branches, the regression on the hardware-in-the-loop rigs, signing through the signing service, delivery through the update service and release notes. Vulnerability response adds a second clock: a reported vulnerability is triaged, fixed, delivered and disclosed under the published vulnerability handling process, often in coordination with other parties.
In scope: maintenance releases, firmware, driver and SDK updates, security updates and advisories, vulnerability triage and coordination, support for new steppings, operating system and toolchain upgrades, the long-term support plan and its regular review. Out of scope: new features that need new architecture work, which start a new program, and the final release and closure, which belong to Final Release & End of Software Support.
12 more sections for registered members.