Which statement is true about firmware?

• A. It is the software program stored into ROM
• B. It is the operating system
• C. It is a hardware component
• D. It is a type of peripheral

Answer: (A)

Firmware is software embedded in a device that provides the lowest-level control over its hardware and is stored in non-volatile memory, typically ROM or flash. This arrangement lets the code persist across power cycles, so the device can initialize and operate without loading the program from other storage. That’s why the statement describing firmware as the software program stored into ROM is the best fit. The operating system is a separate layer of software that manages higher-level tasks and resources and is usually loaded from storage rather than being permanently baked into ROM. A hardware component is a physical part of the device, not software, and a peripheral is an attached device that expands a computer’s capabilities—firmware, by contrast, is software that resides on the device itself to control its hardware.