relation B/W device drivers and firmware

Thread Starter

rohit

Joined Feb 5, 2007
3
hi,
Iam new to embedded industry..I want to know the relation B/W the device driver and the firmware...
1.Whether the device driver is use to load the firmware from the ROM of the specified device....
2.When we buy a Tuner card or some other hardware they supply a device driver....What is the function of that device driver....
3.Is it possible to make a mivrocontroller device with firmware alone without using the operating system...(RTOS)
4.On the whole how is operating system(RTOS),Device driver and firmware related....
Thanks for your help:)
 

mrmeval

Joined Jun 30, 2006
833
1.Whether the device driver is use to load the firmware from the ROM of the specified device....

If there is firmware this can be the case. In some cases the firmware is 'permanent' unless you can reprogram it or replace some sort of non-volatile memory device.

2.When we buy a Tuner card or some other hardware they supply a device driver....What is the function of that device driver....

You usually get generic published driver calls that are easier to program for. You write one program and it works with any card and driver. The driver handles all the weird tuner card specific stuff.

3.Is it possible to make a mivrocontroller device with firmware alone without using the operating system...(RTOS)

I'm not sure what you mean. You can use a microcontroller with firmware. In that case the firmware is the "OS" for the microcontroller. It can be programed into memory inside the microcontroller or some kind of non-volatile memory.

It can be doing something without being hooked to another microcontroller with RTOS/PC etc. If it has to hook to another system that system would need to have a) Program+RTOS or b) program+driver+RTOS

4.On the whole how is operating system(RTOS),Device driver and firmware related....

RTOS is operating system which runs on some sort of processor/microcontroller that then runs the driver which communitcates with the firmware programmed card.

Firmware does not necessarily mean there is a 'microcontroller' running it but that's another story. :)
 
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