What is a Firmware? ( Intermediate level )

Hi Friends,

Today we will learn about Firmware! ( the lesser known part of a Computer )
We only hear and see more of software and hardware/ But there is another very important part of any computer or an electronic device... This is a Firmware.

To make is simple  : I would say " Firmware is a combination of hardware and software"

Let dig into it, and find more details:
There are a lot of devices that contain firmware, to name a few Computer peripherals, Embedded systems, consumer appliances and Computers.



A very important point to note for a firmware is that it always resides on Non Volatile memory devices such as Flash memory or a ROM, also, these could never be changed in their lifetime ( major cases ) some manufactures also release updates to the Firmware to fix bugs and  some issues if reported major.

These updates have to be FLASHED into the firmware. We will go into the flashing in another blog. For now, just remember flashing is the way any firmware is updated.

It is called firmware rather than hardware or software, just to highlight and distinguish that it is very closely tied to the particular hardware component of a device.
Firmware is generally flashed into ROM rather than simply being loaded into normal storage, where it could more easily be erased and lost in the event of a crash hence this is made more secure against getting lost or crash.

Below are few examples:


In consumer products:
Controlling sound and video attributes, as well as the channel list, in modern TVs

In computers:
The BIOS found in IBM-compatible personal computers
The (U)EFI-compliant firmware used on Itanium systems, Intel-based computers from Apple, and many Intel desktop computer motherboards

In routers and firewalls:
IPFire – an open-source firewall/router distribution based on the Linux kernel

In NAS systems:
NAS4Free – an open-source NAS operating system based on FreeBSD 9.1
Openfiler – an open-source NAS operating system based on the Linux kernel

If you have any questions, please feel free to put in on the comments TAB below, I will respond to them at the earliest.

View my more blogs : www.itsomairshariff.blogspot.com




Thank you for reading!
-Omair Sharif.

If you have any questions, please put in the comments box below and submit, I will response at the earliest. Thank you again.

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