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Embedded Controller
An Embedded Controller (EC) is a microcontroller in computers that handles various system tasks. Now it is usually merged with Super I/O, especially on mobile platforms (such as laptop). Tasks An embedded controller can have the following tasks: *Receiving and processing signals from the keyboardhttp://www.computer-engineering.org/ps2keyboard/ and the touchpad (including touchpad disable) *Other buttons and switches (e.g., power button, laptop lid switch (received from hall sensor)) *Controlling access to the A20 line *Thermal measurement (CPU, GPU, Motherboard) and response including fan control, CPU and GPU throttling, and emergency shutdown in response to rising temperatures *Controlling indicator LEDs (e.g. caps lock, scroll lock, num lock, battery, ac, power, wireless LAN, sleep) *Managing the battery charger and the battery *Allowing remote diagnostics and remediation over the network *Performing software-requested CPU reset *Controlling the watchdog timer *System Managem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microcontroller
A microcontroller (MCU for ''microcontroller unit'', often also MC, UC, or μC) is a small computer on a single VLSI integrated circuit (IC) chip. A microcontroller contains one or more CPUs (processor cores) along with memory and programmable input/output peripherals. Program memory in the form of ferroelectric RAM, NOR flash or OTP ROM is also often included on chip, as well as a small amount of RAM. Microcontrollers are designed for embedded applications, in contrast to the microprocessors used in personal computers or other general purpose applications consisting of various discrete chips. In modern terminology, a microcontroller is similar to, but less sophisticated than, a system on a chip (SoC). An SoC may connect the external microcontroller chips as the motherboard components, but an SoC usually integrates the advanced peripherals like graphics processing unit (GPU) and Wi-Fi interface controller as its internal microcontroller unit circuits. Microcontrollers are use ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Advanced Configuration And Power Interface
Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) is an open standard that operating systems can use to discover and configure computer hardware components, to perform power management (e.g. putting unused hardware components to sleep), auto configuration (e.g. Plug and Play and hot swapping), and status monitoring. First released in December 1996, ACPI aims to replace Advanced Power Management (APM), the MultiProcessor Specification, and the Plug and Play BIOS (PnP) Specification. ACPI brings power management under the control of the operating system, as opposed to the previous BIOS-centric system that relied on platform-specific firmware to determine power management and configuration policies. The specification is central to the Operating System-directed configuration and Power Management (OSPM) system. ACPI defines hardware abstraction interfaces between the device's firmware (e.g. BIOS, UEFI), the computer hardware components, and the operating systems. Internally, ACPI ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Serial Peripheral Interface
The Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) is a synchronous serial communication interface specification used for short-distance communication, primarily in embedded systems. The interface was developed by Motorola in the mid-1980s and has become a ''de facto'' standard. Typical applications include Secure Digital cards and liquid crystal displays. SPI devices communicate in full duplex mode using a master-slave architecture usually with a single master (though some Atmel and Silabs devices support changing roles on the fly depending on an external (SS) pin). The master (controller) device originates the frame for reading and writing. Multiple slave-devices may be supported through selection with individual chip select (CS), sometimes called slave select (SS) lines. Sometimes SPI is called a ''four-wire'' serial bus, contrasting with three-, two-, and one-wire serial buses. The SPI may be accurately described as a synchronous serial interface, but it is different from the Sync ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Low Pin Count
The Low Pin Count (LPC) bus is a computer bus used on IBM-compatible personal computers to connect low-bandwidth devices to the CPU, such as the BIOS ROM (BIOS ROM was moved to the Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) bus in 2006), "legacy" I/O devices (integrated into Super I/O, Embedded Controller or IPMI chip), and Trusted Platform Module (TPM). "Legacy" I/O devices usually include serial and parallel ports, PS/2 keyboard, PS/2 mouse, and floppy disk controller. Most PC motherboards with an LPC bus have either a Platform Controller Hub (PCH) or a Southbridge (computing), southbridge chip, which acts as the host and controls the LPC bus. All other devices connected to the physical wires of the LPC bus are peripherals. Overview The LPC bus was introduced by Intel in 1998 as a software-compatible substitute for the Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus. It resembles ISA to software, although physically it is quite different. The ISA bus has a 16-bit data bus and a 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Super I/O
Super I/O is a class of I/O controller integrated circuits that began to be used on personal computer motherboards in the late 1980s, originally as add-in cards, later embedded on the motherboards. A super I/O chip combines interfaces for a variety of low-bandwidth devices. Now it is mostly merged with EC. The functions below are usually provided by the super I/O if they are on the motherboard: * A floppy-disk controller * An IEEE 1284-compatible parallel port (commonly used for printers) * One or more 16C550-compatible serial port UARTs * Keyboard controller for PS/2 keyboard and/or mouse Most Super I/O chips include some additional low-speed devices, such as: * Temperature, voltage, and fan speed interface * Thermal Zone * Chassis intrusion detection * Mainboard power management * LED management * PWM fan speed control * An IrDA Port controller * A game port (not provided by recent super I/O chips anymore because Windows XP is the last Windows OS to support a game port ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Software
Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists of machine language instructions supported by an individual processor—typically a central processing unit (CPU) or a graphics processing unit (GPU). Machine language consists of groups of binary values signifying processor instructions that change the state of the computer from its preceding state. For example, an instruction may change the value stored in a particular storage location in the computer—an effect that is not directly observable to the user. An instruction may also invoke one of many input or output operations, for example displaying some text on a computer screen; causing state changes which should be visible to the user. The processor executes the instructions in the order they are provided, unless it is instructed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flash ROM
Flash memory is an electronic non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for the NOR and NAND logic gates. Both use the same cell design, consisting of floating gate MOSFETs. They differ at the circuit level depending on whether the state of the bit line or word lines is pulled high or low: in NAND flash, the relationship between the bit line and the word lines resembles a NAND gate; in NOR flash, it resembles a NOR gate. Flash memory, a type of floating-gate memory, was invented at Toshiba in 1980 and is based on EEPROM technology. Toshiba began marketing flash memory in 1987. EPROMs had to be erased completely before they could be rewritten. NAND flash memory, however, may be erased, written, and read in blocks (or pages), which generally are much smaller than the entire device. NOR flash memory allows a single machine word to be written to an erased ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Random-access Memory
Random-access memory (RAM; ) is a form of computer memory that can be read and changed in any order, typically used to store working Data (computing), data and machine code. A Random access, random-access memory device allows data items to be read (computer), read or written in almost the same amount of time irrespective of the physical location of data inside the memory, in contrast with other direct-access data storage media (such as hard disks, CD-RWs, DVD-RWs and the older Magnetic tape data storage, magnetic tapes and drum memory), where the time required to read and write data items varies significantly depending on their physical locations on the recording medium, due to mechanical limitations such as media rotation speeds and arm movement. RAM contains multiplexer, multiplexing and demultiplexing circuitry, to connect the data lines to the addressed storage for reading or writing the entry. Usually more than one bit of storage is accessed by the same address, and RAM ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shared Memory (interprocess Communication)
In computer science, shared memory is memory that may be simultaneously accessed by multiple programs with an intent to provide communication among them or avoid redundant copies. Shared memory is an efficient means of passing data between programs. Depending on context, programs may run on a single processor or on multiple separate processors. Using memory for communication inside a single program, e.g. among its multiple threads, is also referred to as shared memory. In hardware In computer hardware, ''shared memory'' refers to a (typically large) block of random access memory (RAM) that can be accessed by several different central processing units (CPUs) in a multiprocessor computer system. Shared memory systems may use: * uniform memory access (UMA): all the processors share the physical memory uniformly; * non-uniform memory access (NUMA): memory access time depends on the memory location relative to a processor; * cache-only memory architecture (COMA): the local memor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SMBus
The System Management Bus (abbreviated to SMBus or SMB) is a single-ended simple two-wire bus for the purpose of lightweight communication. Most commonly it is found in computer motherboards for communication with the power source for ON/OFF instructions. It is derived from I²C for communication with low-bandwidth devices on a motherboard, especially power related chips such as a laptop's rechargeable battery subsystem (see Smart Battery System). Other devices might include temperature, fan or voltage sensors, lid switches, clock generator, and RGB lighting. PCI add-in cards may connect to an SMBus segment. A device can provide manufacturer information, indicate its model/part number, save its state for a suspend event, report different types of errors, accept control parameters and return status. The SMBus is generally not user configurable or accessible. Although SMBus devices usually can't identify their functionality, a new PMBus coalition has extended SMBus to include conven ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as Computer program, programs. These programs enable computers to perform a wide range of tasks. A computer system is a nominally complete computer that includes the Computer hardware, hardware, operating system (main software), and peripheral equipment needed and used for full operation. This term may also refer to a group of computers that are linked and function together, such as a computer network or computer cluster. A broad range of Programmable logic controller, industrial and Consumer electronics, consumer products use computers as control systems. Simple special-purpose devices like microwave ovens and remote controls are included, as are factory devices like industrial robots and computer-aided design, as well as general-purpose devi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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