system management bus
(foldoc) | System Management Bus
SMBus
(SMBus, SMB) A simple two-wire bus used
for communication with low-bandwidth devices on a motherboard,
especially power related chips such as a laptop's rechargeable
battery subsystem (see Smart Battery Data). Other devices
might include temperature sensors and lid switches.
A device can provide manufacturer information, indicate its
model/part number, save its state for a suspend event,
report different types of errors, accept control parameters,
and return status. The SMB is generally not user configurable
or accessible.
The bus carries clock, data, and instructions and is based on
Philip's I2C serial bus protocol. Support for SMBus devices
is provided on Windows 2000. Windows 98 does not support
such devices.
The PIIX4 chipset provides SMBus functionality. Vendors
using SMBus would be required to pay royalties.
{SMBus website
(http://sbs-forum.org/smbus/)}.
{Software to interrogate a SMB motherboard
(http://online.de/home/podien/SMB.HTM)}.
{SMB devices, Part 8 Kernel Mode Driver Design Guide, Win2000 DDK
(http://microsoft.com/ddk/)}.
(1999-08-08)
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