What is firmware?
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Firmware, A set of commands which tells your computer how to respond to the software. Firmware updates may be issued to add features, improve reliability or patch known problems. In general, your computer will perform better and have new features when you upgrade to the latest Firmware versions. Firmware consists of programs installed semi-permanently into memory, using various types of programmable ROM chips, such as PROMS, EPROMs, EEPROMs, and flash chips. Firmware is non-volatile, and will remain in memory after you turn the system off. Often, the term firmware is used to refer specifically to boot firmware, which controls a computer from the time that it is turned on until the primary operating system has taken over. Boot firmware's main function is to initialize the hardware and then to boot (load and execute) the primary operating system. On PCs, the boot firmware is usually referred to as the BIOS. |
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