A beginner's question about peripheral device driver

[Johnson L]

There are lots of peripherals available thesedays, such as memory stick, CF
card, digital sensors, LCD, controller, etc. Usually the peripheral itself
is an embedded system and running software inside. I would like to know if I
can also call the inside software "device driver", cause these term is
already used by OS. I also want to know for the peripherals thesedays, do
they usually run an RTOS inside of themselves? Do they usually support
multi-tasking or just single process? I knew many years ago there were
usually no RTOS running inside of peripherals, typically only a piece of
software kept polling the device I/O ports. I understand they are all
different in nature, but I want to get a big picture.

 

[VanguardLH]

Usually the peripheral itself is an embedded system and running
software inside.

Firmware (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmware)
Embedded OS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embedded_operating_system)

Depends on the device.

 

[Johnson L]

Firmware (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmware)
Embedded OS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embedded_operating_system)

Depends on the device.

Sounds like a good place to start my survey.

Thank you.

Johnson