CMOS or Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor, as the name suggests is a semiconductor. CMOS semiconductors have both NMOS (negative polarity) and PMOS (positive polarity) circuits. However, only one of the circuit types is active at any point in time, thus resulting in lesser power consumption when compared to a transistor. This makes them particularly attractive for use in battery-powered devices, such as portable computers. PCs contain a small battery-powered CMOS memory to hold the system date, time, and other important system settings.
Most Computers have a feature called plug and play which helps system to detect any new devices attached and configure it automatically in the BIOS. Sometimes this does not happen due to some conflict in the device settings etc, so we need to enter the system BIOS to correctly configure these devices.
After completing this module you will be able to:
- Identify the purpose of CMOS memory.
- Identify what it contains, and how and when to change its parameters
- Choose the appropriate course of action, given a scenario involving CMOS
