The System Management Controller (SMC) is a subsystem of
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the devel ...
and Apple processor-based
Macintosh
The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...
computers. It is similar in function to the older
SMU,
PMU, or UAE of non-Intel Macintosh computers.
Overview
The SMC has roles in controlling thermal and power management, battery charging, video mode switching,
sleep and wake,
hibernation, and
LED
A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (cor ...
indicators. It also enables enforcement of the
macOS
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...
End User License, allowing macOS to identify when it is running on non-Apple hardware.
See also
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Embedded controller
An Embedded Controller (EC) is a microcontroller in computers that handles various system tasks. Now it is usually merged with Super I/O, especially on mobile platforms (such as laptop).
Tasks
An embedded controller can have the following tas ...
(EC)
*
Power management integrated circuit
Power management integrated circuits (power management ICs or PMICs or PMU as unit) are integrated circuits for power management. Although PMIC refers to a wide range of chips (or modules in system-on-a-chip devices), most include several DC/DC ...
(PMIC)
*
Power Management Unit
The Power Management Unit (PMU) is a microcontroller that governs power functions of digital platforms. This microchip has many similar components to the average computer, including firmware and software, memory, a CPU, input/output functions, ti ...
(PMU)
*
System Management Unit (SMU)
*
Apple T2
The Apple T2 (Apple's internal name is T8012) security chip is a system on a chip "SoC" tasked with providing security and controller features to Apple's Intel based Macintosh computers. It is a 64-bit ARMv8 chip and runs bridgeOS. T2 has its ...
References
{{reflist
External links
EFI and SMC firmware updates for Intel-based Macs
Products introduced in 2006
Macintosh computers
Apple Inc. hardware