CMOS (Complementary Metal-oxide Semiconductor)

A complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) is a semiconductor technology that uses both P-type transistors (which carry a positive charge) and N-type transistors (which carry a negative charge). CMOS technology uses less power and generates less heat, which enables greater circuit density; however, this comes at the cost of being slower than bipolar semiconductor technologies. The most common CMOS use case is to store a computer’s BIOS settings, which is a built-in configuration for crucial tasks such as booting the operating system and controlling the keyboard. These settings must be preserved even when the computer is turned off and so the CMOS chip has its own self-powered battery.