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| (hardware, standard) | Advanced Configuration and Power Interface - (ACPI) An open industry standard
developed by Intel, Microsoft, and Toshiba for
configuration and power management.
The key element of the standard is power management with two
important improvements. First, it puts the OS in control of
power management. In the currently existing APM model most
of the power management tasks are run by the BIOS, with
limited intervention from the OS. In ACPI, the BIOS is
responsible for the dirty details of communicating with
hardware equipment but the control is in the OS.
The other important feature is bringing power management
features now available only in portable computers to
desktop computers and servers. Extremely low consumption
states, i.e., in which only memory, or not even memory is
powered, but from which ordinary interrupts (real time clock,
keyboard, modem, etc.) can quickly wake the system, are today
available in portables only. The standard should make these
available for a wider range of systems.
For ACPI to work the operating system, the motherboard
chipset, and for some functions even the CPU has to be
designed for it. Microsoft is heavily driving a move toward
ACPI, both Windows NT 5.0 and Windows 98 will support it.
It remains to be seen how much hardware manufacturers will
embrace the technology and whether other operating system
vendors will support it.
ACPI Information Page. | |
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