1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
|
## IRQ
2 of possible exceptions in ARM are IRQ (Interrupt Request) and FIQ (Fast Interrupt Request). The can be caused by external source, such as peripheral devices and they can be used to inform the kernel about some action, that happened.
Interrupts offer an economic way of interacting with peripheral devices. For example, code can probe UART memory-mapped registers in a loop to see whether transmitting/receiving of a character finished. However, this causes the processor needlessly execute the loop and makes it impossible or difficult to perform another tasks at the same time. Interrupt can be used instead of probing to "notify" the kernel, that something it was waiting for just happened. While waiting for interrupt, the system can be put to halt (i.e. wfi instruction), which helps save power, or it can perform other actions without wasting processor cycles in a loop.
An interrupt, that is normally IRQ, can be made into FIQ by ARM system dependent means. FIQ is meant to be able to be handled faster, by not having to back up registers r8-r12, that FIQ mode has it's own copies of. This project only uses IRQ.
Some peripheral devices can be configured (through their memory-mapped registers) to generate an interrupt under certain conditions (i.e. UART can generate interrupt when received characters queue fills). The interrupt can then be either masked or unmasked (sometimes in more than one peripheral register). If interrupts are enabled in CPSR and a peripheral device tries to generate one, that is not masked, IRQ (or FIQ) exception occurs (which causes interrupts to be temporarily masked in CPSR). The code can usually check, whether an interrupt of given kind from given device is **pending**, by looking at the appropriate bit of the appropriate peripheral register (mmio). As long as an interrupt is pending, re-enabling interrupts (for example via return from IRQ handler) shall cause the exception to occur again. Removing the source of the interrupt (i.e. removing characters from UART fifo, that filled) doesn't usually cause the interrupt to stop pending, in which case a pending-bit has to be cleared, usually by writing to the appropriate peripheral register (mmio).
IRQs and FIQs can be configured as vectored - the processor then, upon interrupt, jumps to different location depending on which interrupt occured, instead of jumping to the standard [IRQ/FIQ vector](./Exception-vector-explained.txt). This can be used to speed up interrupt handling. Our simple project does not, however, use this feature.
Currently, IRQs from 2 sources are used: [ARM timer IRQ](https://www.raspberrypi.org/app/uploads/2012/02/BCM2835-ARM-Peripherals.pdf) and UART IRQs. The kernel makes sure, that timer IRQ only occurs when processor is in user mode. IRQ handler does not return in this case - it calls scheduler. The kernel makes sure, that UART IRQ only occurs, when a process is blocked and is waiting for UART IO operation. The interrupt handler, when called, checks what type of UART action happened and tries (through calling of appropriate function from scheduler.c) to handle that action and, possibly, to unblock the waiting process. UART IRQ might occur when another process is executing (not possible now, with only one process, but shall be possible when more processes are added to the project), in which case it the handler returns, or when kernel is explicitly waiting for interrupts (because all processes are blocked), in which case it calls schedule() instead of returning.
|
