Today i am going to show you what is embedded controller chip (super input output chip) used in laptop and how to work and what inside this chip.

 

Embedded Controller Interface Description


Embedded controllers are the general class of microcontrollers used to support OEM-specific implementations. The ACPI specification supports embedded controllers in any platform design, as long as the microcontroller conforms to one of the models described in this section. The embedded controller is a unique feature in that it can perform complex low-level functions through a simple interface to the host microprocessor(s).

Although there is a large variety of microcontrollers in the market today, the most commonly used embedded controllers include a host interface that connects the embedded controller to the host data bus, allowing bi-directional communications. A bi-directional interrupt scheme reduces the host processor latency in communicating with the embedded controller.

Currently, the most common host interface architecture incorporated into microcontrollers is modeled after the standard IA-PC architecture keyboard controller. This keyboard controller is accessed at 0x60 and 0x64 in system I/O space. Port 0x60 is termed the data register, and allows bi-directional data transfers to and from the host and embedded controller. Port 0x64 is termed the command/status register; it returns port status information upon a read, and generates a command sequence to the embedded controller upon a write. This same class of controllers also includes a second decode range that shares the same properties as the keyboard interface by having a command/status register and a data register. The following diagram graphically depicts this interface.