Wii Hardware/Starlet

The Starlet is an NEC ARM926EJ-S, inside of the Hollywood SoC of the Wii. It is a small ARM9 chip that handles many features of the Wii. It's internally known as the IOP, or I/O Processor. It handles security, the "Wii-specific" features of the Wii, and booting the console. It is the first processor to turn on when the power button is pressed. A simplified version of the boot process is listed here for completion sake, as it relates to the Starlet. A more in depth explanation can be found on WiiBrew.

• boot0 is stored in mask ROM, loads boot1 from NAND and verifies its hash
• boot1 is stored in NAND, and loads boot2 from NAND and verifies its signature
• boot2 is a small form of IOS, parses the NAND filesystem, finds and loads the System Menu IOS
• IOS starts, and enables the Broadway PowerPC core.
• The System Menu (or whatever has replaced it, such as Priiloader) launches on Broadway

Of importance to Wii-Linux, is a specific feature of the Hollywood SoC, that the Starlet is intended to keep on at all costs, known as AHBPROT. This feature restricts Broadway access to all of the new hardware in the Wii, necessitating needing to jump through Starlet (primarily through IOS). This feature can be enabled through exploits in IOS, or by using MINI, a custom firmware replacement for the Starlet, designed for, and used by, BootMii.