What is firmware ?

[bharatesh]

What is firmware ? How does it helps in improving the performance of a device? Is it driver for optical drives/HDD ? If not , then what is difference bet. driver & firmware ? How to update firmware ?

[47shailesh]

In a CD recorder, firmware is the programming instructions contained on a ROM chip within the CD recorder which tell the recorder how to respond to commands issued by software. Some firmware is flash-upgradeable, meaning that you can upgrade the firmware by running a piece of software on the computer attached to the recorder. Other firmware is coded into non-rewriteable chip, so the entire chip must be changed in order to upgrade the firmware.


Dude just have a scan to this link..for a more clear picture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmware

This will surelly help you

[shantanu]

firmware works as BIOS for your drive , means that in simle words it tell your drive that what it can recognize and run and at what speed, the spin ratio and all ,, The same as told ABOVE ^^^

[the.kaushik]

or u can say a small set of instructions, stored in ROM to make the hardware work for u