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Fireware固件

Firmware is a combination of hardware and software, often called “software on a chip.” Firmware allows control of the device to which the chip is connected. A firmware chip contains specialized software and is often attached to motherboards, optical drives (such as CD, DVD, or Blu-ray), mass storage devices, and other specialized hardware.

固件是硬件和軟件的組合，通常稱為“芯片上的軟件”。固件允許控制芯片所連接的設備。固件芯片包含專用軟件，通常連接到主板，光盤驅動器（例如CD，DVD或藍光），大容量存儲設備和其他專用硬件。

In older generations of firmware, the firmware was not upgradable unless you replaced the physical chip, but in recent years firmware has been designed to be “flashable.” This means that the chip can be upgraded if the software is outdated or has a programming error. This firmware “flash” replaces the older software on the chip with the latest version, improving performance or enhancing security.

在較早版本的固件中，除非更換了物理芯片，否則固件無法升級，但是近年來，固件被設計為“可閃存”。這意味著，如果軟件過時或出現編程錯誤，則可以升級芯片。該固件“閃存”用最新版本替換了芯片上的舊軟件，從而提高了性能或增強了安全性。

The most common type of firmware found in a computer is called the BIOS (basic input/output system), which provides the computer with the most basic of tasks before the operating system is even loaded. Without the BIOS, the computer would be rather useless, as it wouldn’t even be able to read the hard drive and load the operating system. Firmware is persistent: it remains on the chip even after the power is removed, unlike temporary storage (such as RAM).

計算機中最常見的固件類型稱為BIOS（基本輸入/輸出系統），BIOS甚至在加載操作系統之前就為計算機提供了最基本的任務。沒有BIOS，計算機將變得毫無用處，因為它甚至無法讀取硬盤驅動器並加載操作系統。固件具有持久性：與臨時存儲（例如RAM）不同，固件即使在斷電後仍保留在芯片上。

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