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Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) is an open industry standard developed by HP, Intel, Microsoft, Phoenix and Toshiba for computer configuration and power management.
The key element of the standard is power management with two important improvements. First, it puts the operating system (OS) in control of power management. Conversely, the currently existing APM model assigns power management control to the BIOS, with limited intervention from the OS. In ACPI, the BIOS is responsible for the dirty details of communicating with hardware equipment but the control is in the OS.
The other important feature of ACPI is in bringing power management features currently only available in portable computers to desktop computers and servers. Extremely low consumption states, i.e. in which only memory, or not even memory is powered, but from which ordinary interrupts (real time clock, keyboard, modem, etc.) can quickly wake the system, are today available in portables only. The standard should therefore make these features available for a wider range of systems.
ACPI cannot be applied to older hardware; for it to work, the OS, motherboard chipset, and for some functions even the CPU need to be designed for it.
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