Nearly all computers manufactured today have motherboards which use bios chips based on flash memory technology
BIOS stands for Basic Input/output System. It is software that is built into computers. A BIOS that can be reprogrammed using software is called EPROM.
threw your motherboards bios which can be accessed at startup
Two examples are resetting the BIOS to the default settings and swapping between two different BIOS chips for boards with multiple BIOS.
No a worm can not in theory damage a motherboard, however they can damage your bios rendering motherboard unusable would have to either target a small subset of motherboards or build a large library to make the worm worthwhile,as a precaution change the jumpers to write protect your Motherboards bios
You can flash the BIOS. I wouldn't recommend it, as it won't give much of an improvement UNLESS you're experiencing BSOD, crashing, etc. If this is the case you can go to your motherboard manufacturers website and they should have a BIOS update you can d/l.
They are called eproms or eeproms
Read Only Memory(ROM) Basic Input Output System(BIOS) or firmware chips are "Electrically Erasable and Programmable Read Only Memory(EEPROM)" chips, these kind of chips can be upgraded by flashing.
ACPI Function
BIOS is not dependent on the form factor (ATX) of the motherboard. BIOS are chips with information on how to run certain hardware, these are usually American Megatrends, Award, or Phoenix.
either replace the bios chip itself highly unlikely as most bios chips are soldered or get a new motherboard as its dead a failed bios is a dead board unless u replace the bios chip (if possbile)
On a traditional BIOS, no. Some newer motherboards are starting to include a basic Linux system in their firmware, which can be used even if you have no operating system installed on your hard drive or a bootable CD.