How does firmware damage a device?

[MistahMan]

Good day all,

This maybe a dumb question but if firmware is really just software for a device, how does using the wrong firmware brick a device? Shouldn't we just be able to reset it or re-install the firmware? Does the wrong firmware actually cause physical damage to a device?

Thanks

[Murf]

Firmware is a specific class of computer software that provides the low-level control for a device's specific hardware.

In principle any device with rewritable firmware, or certain crucial settings stored into flash or EEPROM memory, can be bricked. ... Sometimes an interrupted flash upgrade of a PC motherboard will brick the board, for example, due to a power outage (or user impatience) during the upgrade process.

Depending on the device, normally when you go to install firmware it checks for the version and will not upgrade if not needed. Also depending on the device you can go back a version, I.E. BIOS

[MistahMan]

Thanks Murf.