Firmware
Firmware colloquially also referred to as BIOS, *ROM or ROM, is a software that usually resides on a chip that is often required for a given device to function accordingly. Without (functional) firmware, or otherwise corrupted firmware the given device may malfunction, or behave erratically.
Firmware are often programmed into CMOS, ROM, EPROM, EEPROM, which can be considered a performance/security trade-off in retrospect. A critical piece of software that resides on a physical chip is susceptible to bit rot[1], the same as any data being stored physically, such as disk or disc images, and why should these be backed up. These days, especially x86 PC peripherals, these firmware may also reside as files on users' storage mediums (e.g. hard disk or SSD), in which the driver within the Operating System uses it to directly interface with the hardware.
Emulation Software may also require firmware for more optimal emulation. Technically, "LLE" or Low-Level Emulation requires firmware, "HLE" or High-Level Emulation however, may not require firmware.[2] Some virtualization software may also require firmware to allow software within the virtualized environment to make system calls that are specific to that firmware.[3]
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General firmware types
Firmware for specific hardware
Graphics formats
Graphics formats associated with firmware or boot processes
- Apple volume label image
- Award BIOS logo
- BootSkin Vista
- BootSkin XP
- GLE
- GRFX
- HTC splashscreen
- LSS16
- OLPC 565
References
- ↑ Sampler Firmware Binaries - Synth & Sampler Binaries - EPROM Firmware Updates - Support
- ↑ LLE vs HLE and their tradeoffs - Alexandro Sanchez
- ↑ README - QEMU on GitHub
Related things
Links
- Documentation of 2013 Intel graphics processors
- Binwalk - Firmware analysis tool
