.svg) | |
| AMI | |
| Company type | Private |
| Industry | |
| Founded | 1985; 40 years ago (1985) |
| Founders | Subramonian Shankar Pat Sarma |
| Headquarters | Gwinnett County, Georgia, U.S. |
Key people | Sanjoy Maity (CEO) |
| Products | |
| Brands | AMIBIOS Aptio AMI EC AMIDIAG MegaRAC |
Number of employees | >1000 worldwide |
| Website | www |
| Footnotes / references [1][2] Pat Sarma | |
American Megatrends Inc.,doing business asAMI, is an internationalhardware andsoftwarecompany, specializing inPC hardware andfirmware.[3] The company was founded in 1985 by Pat Sarma and Subramonian Shankar.[4] It isheadquartered in Building 800 at 3095Satellite Boulevard inunincorporatedGwinnett County,Georgia,United States, near the city ofDuluth, and in theAtlanta metropolitan area.[5]
The company started as amanufacturer of completemotherboards, positioning itself in the high-end segment. Its first customer was PC's,[4] later known asDell.[6]
As hardware activity moved progressively toTaiwan-basedODMs,[7] AMI continued to developBIOS firmware for major motherboard manufacturers.[8] The company produced BIOS software for motherboards (1986),server motherboards (1992), storage controllers (1995) andremote management cards (1998).[8]
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In 1993, AMI produced MegaRAID, a storagecontroller card. AMI sold itsRAID assets toLSI[4] in 2001,[9] with only one employee from the RAID-division remaining with the AMI core team.[citation needed]
AMI continued to focus onOEM andODM business and technology.[3] Its product line includes or has previously included AMIBIOS[10] (aBIOS), Aptio (a successor to AMIBIOS8 based on theUEFI standard),diagnostic software, AMI EC (embedded controller firmware), MG-SeriesSGPIObackplane controllers (forSATA,SAS andNVMe storage devices),driver/firmware development, andMegaRAC (BMC firmware).[3][4]
American Megatrends Inc. (AMI) was founded in 1985 by Subramonian Shankar and Pat Sarma with funds from a previous consulting venture, Access Methods Inc. (AMI).[4] Access Methods was a company run by Pat Sarma and his partner. After Access Methods successfully launched the AMIBIOS, there were legal issues among the owners of the company, resulting in Sarma buying out his partners. Access Methods still owned the rights to the AMIBIOS. Sarma had already started a company called Quintessential Consultants Inc. (QCI), and later set up an equal partnership with Shankar.[12]
By this time the AMIBIOS had become established and there was a need to keep the initials AMI. The partners renamed QCI as American Megatrends, with the same initials as Access Methods; the renamed company then purchased AMIBIOS from Access Methods. Shankar became the president and Sarma the executive vice-president of this company.[12] This partnership continued until 2001, whenLSI Logic purchased the RAID Division of American Megatrends; American Megatrends then purchased all shares of the company owned by Sarma, making Shankar the majority owner.[4]
AMIDiag is a family ofPCdiagnostic utilities sold toOEMs only.[13] The AMIDiagsuite was introduced in 1991 and made available forMS-DOS,Microsoft Windows andUEFI platforms.[13] It includes both the Windows and DOS PC diagnostics programs. Later versions of AMIDiag support UEFI, which allows diagnostics to be performed directly on thehardware components, without having to useoperating systemdrivers orfacilities.[13]
AMI'sUEFIfirmware solutions. Aptio V is AMI's current main UEFIfirmware product. Aptio Community Edition is anopen source UEFI firmware product. Aptio 4 is a now-discontinued previous version that has been succeeded by Aptio V.
MegaRAC is aproduct line ofBMC firmware packages and formerly service processors providingout-of-band, or lights-outremote management ofcomputer systems. These BMCs running MegaRACfirmware packages or service processors operate independently of theoperating system status or location, to manage andtroubleshoot computers.
| Number of beeps | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 1 | Power-on self test successful |
| 2 | Parity error in the first 64 KB of RAM |
| 3 | Memory failure in the first 64 KB of RAM |
| 4 | Same as 3, but also including a non-functional timer 1 |
| 5 | CPU error |
| 6 | Error in theA20 line on the 8042 keyboard controller chip |
| 7 | Generation of a CPU virtual mode exception signifying an error |
| 8 | Read/write error when accessing systemvideo RAM |
| 9 | Mismatch between the calculated checksum of the ROM firmware and the expected value hardcoded into the firmware. |
| 10 | Read/write error for the CMOS NVRAM shutdown register |
| 11 | A fault in theL2 cache |
AMIBIOS is theIBM PC-compatibleBIOS that was formerly developed and sold by American Megatrends since 1986.[10] In 1994, the company claimed that 75% ofPC clones used AMIBIOS.[16] It is used onmotherboards made by AMI and by other companies.[3]
American Megatrends had a strictOEM business model for AMIBIOS: it sold source code to motherboard manufacturers or customized AMIBIOS for each OEM individually, whichever business model they require.[10] AMI does not sell to end users, and itself produces no end-user documentation or technical support for its BIOS firmware, leaving that to licensees.[10] However, the company published two books on its BIOS in 1993 and 1994, written by its engineers.[17]
During powerup, the BIOSfirmware displays an ID string in the lower-left-hand corner of the screen.[18] This ID string comprises various pieces of information about the firmware, including when it was compiled, what configuration options were selected, the OEM license code, and the targeted chipset and motherboard.[18] There are 3 ID string formats, the first for older AMIBIOS, and the second and third for the newer AMI Hi-Flex ("high flexibility") BIOS.[17] These latter are displayed when the Insert key is pressed during power-on self-test.[17]
The original AMI BIOS did not encrypt the machine startup password, which it stored in non-volatileRAM.[18] Therefore, any utility capable of reading a PC'sNVRAM was able to read and to alter the password.[17] The AMI WinBIOS encrypts the stored password, using a simplesubstitution cipher.[19]
By pressing theDelete key during power-on self-test when a prompt is displayed, the BIOS setup utility program is invoked.[17] Some earlier AMIBIOS versions also included a cut-down version of the AMIDIAG utility that AMI also sold separately, but most later AMI BIOSes do not include this program as the BIOSDMI already incorporates detailed diagnostics.[17]
AMIBIOS was formerly sold through distributors, not directly available from the manufacturer or from eSupport.[20]
AMI supplies bothDOS andWindows firmware upgrade utilities for its own motherboards. eSupport only supplies a Windows upgrade utility.[17][20][21]
TheStorTrends family of network-based backup and storage management software and hardware includes several NAS and iSCSI-based SAN servers with 4, 12, or 16 drive bays.[22]
AMI couples off-the-shelf hardware with the StorTrends iTX storage management firmware platform.[23] StorTrends offers synchronous, asynchronous and snap-assisted replication,thin provisioning, high-availability grouping and advanced caching.[22]
Reliability and performance is the key for any storage server. StorTrends iTX 2.8 is designed to support Storage Bridge Bay specification that provide Auto-Failover capability to ensure that any interruption is handled without affecting data.[22] It supportsHigh-availability cluster, redundancy, scalability, replication, disaster recovery and multiple site backups.[24][23]
 | |
| Developer(s) | American Megatrends |
|---|---|
| Initial release | July 2014 |
| Stable release | 1.0.4.5135 |
| Operating system | Windows 7,Windows 8,Windows 8.1 |
| License | Trialware |
| Website | www |
DuOS-M was commercial software developed by American Megatrends forIntelx86-based computers[25] using theMicrosoftWindowsoperating system to provide a "dual operating system" environment in which the user can simultaneously deploy theAndroid operating system in tandem with Microsoft Windows.[26]
Because DuOS-M has the capability to run both Windows and Android simultaneously, the user can switch[27] between the two operating systems without having todual boot or suspend operation of one operating system in order to utilize the other.[26]
DuOS-M supports key hardwareperipherals[28] in Windows including cameras, audio, microphone and sensors such as ambient light sensor,accelerometer, gyrometer,compass and orientation sensors.[26] It also supports various screen sizes, resolutions, and screen orientation (portrait and landscape) along with 3D acceleration and HD video playback.[26]
The first version of DuOS-M was released in June 2014.[26] The software is available for download for a free 30-day trial,[29] and is available for purchase for a complete license.
On March 7, 2018, American Megatrends officially announced that it ceased development of DuOS-M.[26][30] No further updates were being released at this time, including bug fixes and security patches.
On November 13, 1993, some PCs with AMIBIOS firmware began bootup playing the tune to "Happy Birthday". The PC would remain halted, and the song would continue playing until a key was pressed, after which bootup would resume.[31] The problem was caused by avirus-freeTrojan, which was later resolved with firmware updates.[31]
The AMI WinBIOS was a 1994 update to AMIBIOS, with aGUI setup screen that mimicked the appearance ofWindows 3.1 and supportedmouse navigation, unusual at the time. WinBIOS was viewed favorably by Anand Lal Shimpi atAnandTech,[32] but described by Thomas Pabst atTom's Hardware as a "big disappointment", in part because of problems with distributingIRQ signals to everyPCI andISA expansion slot.[33]
In July 2008 Linux developers discovered issues with ACPI tables on certain AMIBIOS BIOSes supplied byFoxconn,ASUS, andMSI.[34] The problem was related to the ACPI _OSI method, which is used by ACPI to determine the OS version (in case an ACPI patch only applies to one specific OS). In some cases, the OSI method caused problems on Linux systems, skipping code that was only executed on Windows systems. Foxconn and AMI worked together to develop a solution, which was included in later revisions of AMIBIOS.[34] The issue affected motherboards with Intel Socket 775. Actual system behavior differed based on BIOS version, system hardware andLinux distribution.[34]
In October 2021 an issue was discovered where some Baseboard Management Controllers were shipped with a license/royalty sticker that had the company name misspelled as "American Megatrands".[35]
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