American Megatrends, Inc. (AMI), a global leader in BIOS, BMC and remote management tools, network data storage products and more, is pleased to announce support for USB Power Delivery (PD), USB Type-C™ and eSPI bus in AMI embedded controller (EC) firmware, called AMI EC.

EC firmware has steadily evolved from the keyboard controller of the last millennia to what it is today. Along the way, it’s kept many of its legacy components, which include old-fashioned communication methods such as communicating through the low pin count (LPC) bus. At the same time, it’s picked up added features such as LED status indicators and added button controls.

Good Bye LPC Bus

As the industry moves away from legacy components and buses due to increased security requirements and the need for improved performance, both in speed and efficiency, silicon vendors are transitioning away from the LPC bus to the newer eSPI bus. This offers ODMs and OEMs the opportunity to not only switch to the eSPI bus, but to switch to a more modern EC firmware implementation from AMI. AMI’s eSPI-compatible EC firmware solution is ready to help them during this transition. AMI EC features full eSPI functionality, USB Type-C support, USB PD and improved power management.

AMI EC leverages the same Aptio V Tools and Utilities

OEM and ODM customers who have developed extensive BIOS porting and development skills using Visual eBIOS (VeB), the advanced graphical environment for firmware development in Aptio® V, AMI's flagship UEFI BIOS offering, will be happy to know that in switching to AMI EC, these same skills can be transferred to their EC development efforts.

For a complete list of supported EC chips and for more information on how to get started with general licensing, access, porting and development with AMI EC firmware, please contact your AMI representative at 1-800-U-BUY- AMI / +1-770-246-8600 or visit ami.com.

USB Type-C™ is a trademark of USB or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and/or other countries.