intterupt Flashcards
1
Q
what is an interrupt
A
signals generated by software or hardware to indicate to the processor that a process needs attention
2
Q
how does the whole thing work
A
The processor checks the contents of the interrupt
register at the end of each Fetch-Decode-Execute cycle.
If an interrupt exists that is of a higher priority to the
process being executed, the current contents of the
special purpose registers in the CPU are temporarily
transferred into a stack. The processor then responds to
the interrupt by loading the appropriate interrupt service
routine (ISR) into RAM. A flag is set to signal the ISR has
begun.
