Slide 4 of 9
Notes:
This diagram overviews the SMBus hierarchy within a PC system. The OS can access the SMBus devices resident on the EC or Chip Set branch. As stated in the SMBus driver specification: “The SMBus device driver is implemented as a class and mini-port driver pair. The class driver is SMBCMICL.SYS and the mini-port is SMBCMIHC.SYS. The SMBus device driver receives requests in the form of IOCTLs (I/OControl) and converts them into calls to the appropriate ACPI control method. The ACPI SMBus control methods resident in AML on the platform perform the actual interfacing with the SMBus host controller. The AML code is responsible for actually interfacing with the physical SMBus hardware. The driver also monitors SMBus segments for alerts, and forwards notifications to any entities that have registered to receive them.”
