What is an Interrupt??
An interrupt is a signal (an
"interrupt request") generated by some event external to the CPU , which causes the CPU to stop what it is doing
(stop executing the code it is currently running) and jump to a separate piece
of code designed by the programmer to deal with
the event which generated the interrupt request.
Interrupts
are an essential feature of a micro controller. They enable the software to
respond, in a timely fashion, to internal and external hardware events.
For
example, the reception and transmission of bytes via the SCI is more efficient
(in terms of processor time) using interrupts, rather than using a polling
method.
Performance is improved because tasks can be given to hardware modules which “report back” when they are finished.
Performance is improved because tasks can be given to hardware modules which “report back” when they are finished.
Using
interrupts requires that we understand how a CPU processes an interrupt so that
we can configure our software to take advantage of them.
An
interrupt is an event triggered inside the micro controller, either by internal
and external hardware, that initiates the automatic transfer of software
execution to an interrupt service routine (ISR). On completion of the ISR,
software execution returns to the next instruction that would have occurred
without the interrupt.
Some
interrupts share the same interrupt vector. For example, the reception and
transmission of a byte via the SCI leads to just one interrupt, and there is
one vector associated with it. The two interrupt sources are ORed together to
create one interrupt request. In such cases, the ISR is responsible for polling
the status flags to see which event actually triggered the interrupt. Care must
be serviced by the software.
Process of Interrupt Handling:-
When
an interrupt occurs,
· Disable the other
interrupts
· Save the Context
· Control goes to
corresponding interrupt handler
· Interrupt Service
Routine (ISR) is executed
· After executing,
restore the context
· Enable the interrupts
· Return to task.
Interrupt Service Routine:-
Many embedded systems are
called interrupt driven systems,
because most of the processing occurs in ISRs, and the embedded system spends
most of its time in a low-power mode.
Sometimes ISR may be split
into two parts: top-half (fast interrupt handler, First-Level Interrupt Handler
(FLIH)) and bottom-half (slow interrupt handler, Second-Level Interrupt
Handlers (SLIH)). Top-half is a faster part of ISR which should quickly store minimal information about interrupt and schedule
slower bottom-half at a later time.
Mainly, there are two types of interrupts: Hardware and Software. Software interrupts are called
from software, using a specified command. Hardware interrupts are triggered by
peripheral devices outside the microcontroller.
For instance, your embedded system may contain a timer that
sends a pulse to the controller every second. Your microcontroller would wait
until this pulse is received, and when the pulse comes, an interrupt would be
triggered that would handle the signal.
An interrupt vector is an important part of interrupt
service mechanism, which associates a processor.
Processor first saves program counter and/or other
registers of CPU on Interrupt and then loads vector address into the program
counter.
Vector address provides either the ISR or ISR address to
the processor for the interrupt source or group of sources or given interrupt
type.
System software designer puts the bytes at a ISR_VECTADDR
address.
The bytes are for
either:-
· The ISR short code or jump
instruction to ISR instruction or
· ISR short code with call to the
full code of the ISR at an ISR address or
· Bytes points to an ISR address
Interrupt Latency:-
When an interrupt occurs the service of the interrupt by
executing the ISR may not start immediately by context switching. The interval
between the occurrence of an interrupt and start of execution of the ISR is
called Interrupt Latency.
Depth
of Interrupt handling mechanism:-
The three main types of interrupts are software, internal
hardware and external hardware. Software interrupts are explicitly triggered
internally by some instruction within the current instruction stream being
executed by the master processor.
Internal hardware interrupts, on the other hand, are
initiated by an event that is result of a problem with the current instruction
stream that is being executed by the master processor because of the features
of the hardware, such as illegal math operations (overflow, divide-by-zero), debugging
(single stepping, break-points), and invalid instructions (opcodes).
Interrupts that are raised (requested) by some internal
event to the master processor (basically software and internal hardware
interrupts) are also commonly referred to as exceptions or traps.
Exceptions are internally generated hardware interrupts
triggered by errors that are detected by the master processor during software
execution, such as invalid data or a divide by zero. How exceptions are
prioritized and processed is determined by the architecture.
Traps are software interrupts specifically generated by the
software, via an exception instruction. Finally, external hardware interrupts
initiated by hardware other than master CPU (board buses, I/O etc.).
For interrupts that are raised by external events, the
master processor is either wired via an input pins called an IRQ (Interrupt
request level) pin or port, to outside intermediary hardware (e.g. interrupt
controllers), or directly to other components on the board with dedicated
interrupt ports, that signal the master CPU when they want to raise the
interrupt.
These types of interrupts are triggered in one of two ways
: level triggered or edge triggered. A level triggered interrupt is initiated
when IRQ signal is at a certain level (i.e. HIGH or LOW). These interrupts are
processed when the CPU finds arequest for level-triggered interrupt when
sampling its IRQ line, such as at the end of processing each instruction.
Edge-triggered
interrupts are triggered when a change occurs on the IRQ line (from LOW to
HIGH/rising edge of signal or from HIGH to LOW/falling edge of signal). Once
triggered, these interrupts latch into the CPU until processed.
Both
types of interrupts have their strengths and drawbacks. With a level-triggered
interrupt, if the request is being processed and has not been disabled before
the next sampling period, the CPU will try to service the same interrupt again.
On the flip side, if the level-triggered interrupt were triggered and then
disabled before the CPU’s sample period, the CPU would never note its existence
and would therefore never process it.
Edge-triggered
interrupts could have problems if they share the same IRQ line, if they were
triggered in the same manner at about the same time (say before the CPU could
process the first interrupt), resulting in the CPU being able to detect only
one of the interrupts.
Because
of these drawbacks, level-triggered interrupts are generally recommended for
interrupts that share IRQ lines, whereas edge-triggered interrupts are
typically recommended for interrupt signals that are very short or very long.
At
the point an IRQ of a master processor receives a
signal that an interrupt has been raised, the interrupt is processed by the
interrupt-handling mechanisms within the system. These mechanisms are made up
of a combination of both hardware and software
components.
In
terms of hardware, an interrupt controller can be integrated onto a board, or
within a processor, to mediate interrupt transactions in conjunction with
software.
Interrupt
acknowledgment (IACK) is typically handled by the master processor when an
external device triggers an interrupt. Because IACK cycles are a function of
the local bus, the IACK function of the master CPU depends on interrupt
policies of system buses, as well as the interrupt policies of components
within the system that trigger the interrupts. With respect to the external
device triggering an interrupt, the interrupt scheme depends on whether that
device can provide an interrupt vector (a place in memory that holds the
address of an interrupt’s ISR (Interrupt Service Routine), the software that
the master CPU executes after the triggering of an interrupt).
For devices that cannot provide an interrupt
vector, referred to as non-vectored interrupts, master processors implement an
auto-vectored interrupt scheme in which one ISR is shared by the non-vectored
interrupts; determining which specific interrupt to handle, interrupt
acknowledgment, etc., are all handled by the ISR software.
An
interrupt-vectored scheme is implemented to support
peripherals that can provide an interrupt vector
over a bus and where acknowledgment is automatic. An IACK-related register on
the master CPU informs the device requesting the interrupt to stop requesting
interrupt service, and provides what the master processor needs to process the
correct interrupt (such as the interrupt number and vector number).
Based upon the activation of an external
interrupt pin, an interrupt controller’s interrupt select register, a device’s
interrupt select register, or some combination of the above, the master
processor can determine which ISR to execute. After the ISR completes, the
master processor resets the interrupt status by adjusting the bits in the
processor’s status register or an interrupt mask in the external interrupt
controller. The interrupt request and acknowledgment mechanisms are determined
by the device requesting the interrupt (since it determines which interrupt
service to trigger), the master processor, and the system
bus protocols.
Because
there are potentially multiple components on an embedded
board that may need to request interrupts, the scheme that manages all
of the different types of interrupts is priority- based. This means that all
available interrupts within a processor have an associated interrupt level,
which is the priority of that interrupt within the system.
Typically,
interrupts starting at level “1” are the highest priority within the system and
incrementally from there (2, 3, 4, etc.) the priorities of the associated
interrupts decrease. Interrupts with higher levels have precedence over any
instruction stream being executed by the master processor, meaning that not
only do interrupts have precedence over the main program, but higher priority
interrupts have priority over interrupts with lower priorities as well.
When
an interrupt is triggered, lower priority interrupts are typically masked,
meaning they are not allowed to trigger when the system is handling a higher-
priority interrupt. The interrupt with the highest priority is usually called
an NMI.
How
the components are prioritized depends on the IRQ line they are connected to,
in the case of external devices, or what has been assigned
by the processor design. It is the master
processor’s internal design that determines the number of external interrupts
available and the interrupt levels supported within an embedded
system.
Several
different priority schemes are implemented in the
various architectures. These schemes commonly fall under one of three models:
the equal single level, where the latest interrupt to be triggered gets the CPU; the static multilevel,
where priorities are assigned by a priority encoder, and the interrupt with the
highest priority gets the CPU; and the dynamic multilevel, where a priority
encoder assigns priorities and the priorities are reassigned when a new
interrupt is triggered.
After the
hardware mechanisms have determined which interrupt to handle and have
acknowledged the interrupt, the current instruction stream is halted and a
context switch is performed, a process in which the master processor switches
from executing the current instruction stream to another set of instructions.
This
alternate set of instructions being executed as the result of an interrupt is
the ISR or interrupt handler. An ISR is simply a fast, short program that is
executed when an interrupt is triggered.
The
specific ISR executed for a particular interrupt depends on whether a
non-vectored or vectored scheme is in place. In the case of a non-vectored
interrupt, a memory location contains the start of an ISR that the PC (program
counter) or some similar mechanism branches to for all non-vectored interrupts.
The ISR code then determines the source of the interrupt and provides the
appropriate processing. In a vectored scheme, typically an interrupt vector
table contains the address of the ISR.
The steps
involved in an interrupt context switch include stopping the current program’s
execution of instructions, saving the context information (registers, the PC,
or similar mechanism that indicates where the processor should jump back to
after executing the ISR) onto a stack, either dedicated or shared with other
system software, and perhaps the disabling of other interrupts. After the
master processor finishes executing the ISR, it context switches back to the
original instruction stream that had been interrupted, using the context
information as a guide.
The
performance of an embedded design is affected by
the latencies (delays) involved with the interrupt-handling scheme. The
interrupt latency is essentially the time from when an interrupt is triggered
until its ISR starts executing. The master CPU, under normal circumstances,
accounts for a lot of overhead for the time it takes to process the interrupt
request and acknowledge the interrupt, obtaining an interrupt vector (in a
vectored scheme), and context switching to the ISR.
In
the case when a lower-priority interrupt is triggered during the processing of
a higher priority interrupt, or a higher priority interrupt is triggered during
the processing of a lower priority interrupt, the interrupt latency for the
original lower priority interrupt increases to include the time in which the
higher priority interrupt is handled.
Within
the ISR itself, additional overhead is caused by the context information being
stored at the start of the ISR and retrieved at the end of the ISR. The time to
context switch back to the original instruction
stream that the CPU was executing before the
interrupt was triggered also adds to the overall interrupt execution time.
While
the hardware aspects of interrupt handling (the context switching, processing
interrupt requests, etc.) are beyond the software’s control, the overhead
related to when the context information is saved, as well as how the ISR is
written both in terms of the programming language used and the size, are under
the software’s control.
Smaller
ISRs, or ISRs written in a lower-level language like assembly, as opposed to
larger ISRs or ISRs written in higher-level languages like Java, or
saving/retrieving less context information at the start and end of an ISR, can
all decrease the interrupt handling execution time and increase performance.
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