What is EFI in partition scheme? Recently I changed my partition scheme from MBR to GPT, and during after conversion I saw a another partition named EFI ... I don't have a good idea what does it do or its purpose ... but I think it's use for backup's.

So my question here is can you explain/tell me about EFI and it purpose?
Here is the Wikipedia article on the EFI system partition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFI_System_partition

It says, in part,


  The EFI System partition is a partition on a data storage device that is used by machines that adhere to the Extensible Firmware Interface. It contains the boot loader programs for all operating systems installed (in other partitions) on the device, device driver files (used by the firmware at boot time) for other devices, and system utility programs that are intended to be run before an operating system is booted.
  
  On Apple–Intel architecture Macintosh computers, the EFI partition is initially blank and not used for booting. However, the EFI partition is used as a staging area for firmware updates;