what is the difference between these thing firmware ,boot loader and driver.

hi all,

i want to difference between following three things.

i)Firmware

ii)Bootloader

iii)Driver.

in my view

  Firmware - used to control one particular chip or used to transfer the data from one protocol to other type protocol.

Bootloader - used to allow the downloaded code from particular memory address.

  Driver - used to access particular device.

pls help me.

thanks in advance..........

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  • Hello,

    I moved your question to Embedded.

    Here are how I would personally describe them:

    1. Firmware: a small footprint software usually found in embedded devices. For instance, the micro-code of a hard-drive or a washing machine.
    2. Bootloader: part of the firmware usually ran during the boot sequence which allows to load a new firmware to update it from SPI, USB, CAN...
    3. Driver: low level reusable set of functions used to run peripherals or work with APIs making some abstraction of the hardware. For instance, sending a function that will handle sending a character through a UART by enabling the module, setting I/Os, baudrate, parity, and then finally sending the character and handling errors.

    How does that sound?

    Alban

Reply
  • Hello,

    I moved your question to Embedded.

    Here are how I would personally describe them:

    1. Firmware: a small footprint software usually found in embedded devices. For instance, the micro-code of a hard-drive or a washing machine.
    2. Bootloader: part of the firmware usually ran during the boot sequence which allows to load a new firmware to update it from SPI, USB, CAN...
    3. Driver: low level reusable set of functions used to run peripherals or work with APIs making some abstraction of the hardware. For instance, sending a function that will handle sending a character through a UART by enabling the module, setting I/Os, baudrate, parity, and then finally sending the character and handling errors.

    How does that sound?

    Alban

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