Functional Description
ARM DDI 0363G
Copyright © 2006-2011 ARM Limited. All rights reserved.
2-7
ID073015
Non-Confidential
VIC port
The core has a dedicated port that enables an external interrupt controller, such as the ARM
PrimeCell
Vectored Interrupt Controller
(VIC), to supply a vector address along with an
Interrupt Request
(IRQ) signal. This provides faster interrupt entry, but you can disable it for
compatibility with earlier interrupt controllers.
Note
If you do not have a VIC in your design, you must ensure the
nIRQ
and
nFIQ
signals are
asserted, held LOW, and remain LOW until the exception handler clears them.
Low interrupt latency
On receipt of an interrupt, the processor abandons any pending restartable memory operations.
Restartable memory operations are the multiword transfer instructions
LDM
,
LDRD
,
STRD
,
STM
,
PUSH
,
and
POP
that can access Normal memory.
To minimize the interrupt latency, ARM recommends that you do not perform:
•
multiple accesses to areas of memory marked as Device or Strongly-ordered
•
SWP operations to slow areas of memory.
Exception processing
The ARMv7-R architecture contains exception processing instructions to reduce interrupt
handler entry and exit time:
SRS
Save return state to a specified stack frame.
RFE
Return from exception using data from the stack.
CPS
Change processor state, such as interrupt mask setting and clearing, and mode
changes.
2.1.9
Power management
The processor includes several microarchitectural features to reduce energy consumption:
•
Accurate branch and return prediction, reducing the number of incorrect instruction fetch
and decode operations.
•
The caches use sequential access information to reduce the number of accesses to the tag
RAMs and to unmatched data RAMs.
•
Extensive use of gated clocks and gates to disable inputs to unused functional blocks.
Because of this, only the logic actively in use to perform a calculation consumes any
dynamic power.
The processor uses four levels of power management:
Run mode
This mode is the normal mode of operation where all of the functionality
of the processor is available.
Dormant mode
The processor can be implemented in such a way as to support Dormant
mode. Dormant mode is a power saving mode in which the processor
logic, but not the TCM and cache RAMs, is powered down. The processor
state, apart from the cache and TCM state, is stored to memory before
entry into Dormant mode, and restored after exit. For more information on
preparing the Cortex-R4 to support Dormant mode, contact ARM.