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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 laptops). Tasks An embedded controller can have the following tasks: *Receiving and processing signals from the keyboard 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 *Power management, including control voltage regulator module *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 ti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microcontroller
A microcontroller (MC, uC, or μC) or microcontroller unit (MCU) is a small computer on a single integrated circuit. A microcontroller contains one or more CPUs (processor cores) along with memory and programmable input/output peripherals. Program memory in the form of NOR flash, OTP ROM, or ferroelectric RAM is also often included on the 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). A SoC may include a microcontroller as one of its components but usually integrates it with advanced peripherals like a graphics processing unit (GPU), a Wi-Fi module, or one or more coprocessors. Microcontrollers are used in automatically controlled products and devices, such as automobile engi ... [...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. It was 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, AC ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Serial Peripheral Interface
Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) is a de facto standard (with many variants) for synchronous serial communication, used primarily in embedded systems for short-distance wired communication between integrated circuits. SPI follows a master–slave architecture, where a master device orchestrates communication with one or more slave devices by driving the clock and chip select signals. Some devices support changing master and slave roles on the fly. Motorola's original specification (from the early 1980s) uses four logic signals, aka lines or wires, to support full duplex communication. It is sometimes called a ''four-wire'' serial bus to contrast with three-wire variants which are half duplex, and with the ''two-wire'' I²C and 1-Wire serial buses. Typical applications include interfacing microcontrollers with peripheral chips for Secure Digital cards, liquid crystal displays, analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters, flash and EEPROM memory, and various ... [...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, CPLD, and/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 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 24-bit add ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microchip Technology
Microchip Technology Incorporated is a publicly listed American semiconductor corporation that manufactures microcontroller, mixed-signal, analog, and Flash-IP integrated circuits. Its corporate headquarters is located in Chandler, Arizona. Its wafer fabs are located in Gresham, Oregon, and Colorado Springs, Colorado. The company's assembly/test facilities are in Chachoengsao, Thailand, and Calamba and Cabuyao, Philippines. Microchip Technology offers support and resources to educators, researchers and students in an effort to increase awareness and knowledge of embedded applications. History Origins Microchip Technology was founded in 1987 when General Instrument spun off its microelectronics division as a wholly owned subsidiary. The newly formed company was a supplier of programmable non-volatile memory, microcontrollers, digital signal processors, card chip on board, and consumer integrated circuits. An initial public offering (IPO) later in the year was canc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuvoton
Nuvoton Technology Corporation () is a Taiwanese semiconductor company established in 2008. It originated as a wholly owned subsidiary of Winbond Electronics Corp. before becoming an independent entity. It became a public company in September 2010 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE). Overview Nuvoton develops and manufactures various semiconductor products, including microcontroller application integrated circuits (ICs) for audio, cloud and computing. Nuvoton also provides foundry services. The company's consumer electronics ICs focus on microcontroller ICs and voice and speech ICs. Nuvoton designs and manufactures key chips for PC motherboards, laptops, and servers, offering super I/O components, clock generators, hardware monitoring, power management ICs. Notebook keyboard controllers, embedded controllers for mobile platforms and TPM security chips. Nuvoton operates a six-inch wafer fab, providing foundry services for its own branded IC products and for manufacturing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Software
Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital computers in the mid-20th century. Early programs were written in the machine language specific to the hardware. The introduction of high-level programming languages in 1958 allowed for more human-readable instructions, making software development easier and more portable across different computer architectures. Software in a programming language is run through a compiler or Interpreter (computing), interpreter to execution (computing), execute on the architecture's hardware. Over time, software has become complex, owing to developments in Computer network, networking, operating systems, and databases. Software can generally be categorized into two main types: # operating systems, which manage hardware resources and provide services for applicat ... [...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 by Fujio Masuoka 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 wr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Random-access Memory
Random-access memory (RAM; ) is a form of Computer memory, electronic 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 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 and Magnetic tape data storage, magnetic tape), 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. In today's technology, random-access memory takes the form of integrated circuit (IC) chips with MOSFET, MOS (metal–oxide–semiconductor) Memory cell (computing), memory cells. RAM is normally associated with Volatile memory, volatile types of memory where s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SMBus
The System Management Bus (SMBus or SMB) is a single-ended simple two-wire bus for the purpose of lightweight communication. Most commonly it is found in chipsets of computer motherboards for communication with the power source for ON/OFF instructions. The exact functionality and hardware interfaces vary with vendors. 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 and ACPI). Other devices might include external master hosts, temperature sensor, fan or voltage sensors, lid switches, clock generator, and RGB lighting. Peripheral Component Interconnect (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, return status over SMBus, and poll chipset registers. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wake-on-LAN
Wake-on-LAN (WoL) is an Ethernet or Token Ring computer networking standard that allows a computer to be turned on or awakened from sleep mode by a network message. The message is usually sent to the target computer by a program executed on a device connected to the same local area network (LAN). It is also possible to initiate the message from another network by using subnet directed broadcasts or a WoL gateway service. It is based upon AMD's ''Magic Packet Technology'', which was co-developed by AMD and Hewlett-Packard, following its proposal as a standard in 1995. The standard saw quick adoption thereafter through IBM, Intel and others. If the computer being awakened is communicating via Wi-Fi, a supplementary standard called Wake on Wireless LAN (WoWLAN) must be employed. The WoL and WoWLAN standards are often supplemented by vendors to provide protocol-transparent on-demand services, for example in the Apple Bonjour wake-on-demand ( Sleep Proxy) feature. History The basi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
