Firmware
computer software that provides the low-level control for a device's specific hardware / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In computing, firmware is a computer program that is "embedded" in a hardware device and is an essential part of the hardware.[1] It is sometimes called embedded software. An example is a microcontroller, a part of the microprocessor that tells the microprocessor what actions to take. It can also be a larger program stored on flash memory, or uploaded onto existing hardware by a user.
As its name suggests, firmware is somewhere between hardware and software, connecting the two worlds. It can mean slightly different things to different people, especially as stand-alone electronic devices become more like computers. Like software, it is a computer program which is run by a microprocessor. But it is also linked to a piece of hardware and has no meaning without it.