Chapter 4 System Support
4.4 SYSTEM
RESOURCES
This section describes the availability and basic control of major subsystems, otherwise known as
resource allocation or simply “system resources.” System resources are provided on a priority
basis through hardware interrupts and DMA requests and grants.
4.4.1 INTERRUPTS
The microprocessor uses two types of hardware interrupts; maskable and nonmaskable. A
maskable interrupt can be enabled or disabled within the microprocessor by the use of the STI and
CLI instructions. A nonmaskable interrupt cannot be masked off within the microprocessor,
although it may be inhibited by hardware or software means external to the microprocessor.
4.4.1.1 Maskable
Interrupts
The maskable interrupt is a hardware-generated signal used by peripheral functions within the
system to get the attention of the microprocessor. Peripheral functions produce a unique INTA-H
(PCI) or IRQ0-15 (ISA) signal that is routed to interrupt processing logic that asserts the interrupt
(INTR-) input to the microprocessor. The microprocessor halts execution to determine the source
f the interrupt and then services the peripheral as appropriate.
o
Figure 4-10 shows the routing of PCI and ISA interrupts. Most IRQs are routed through the I/O
controller, which contains a serializing function. A serialized interrupt stream is applied to the
2801 component.
8
Figure 4-10.
Maskable
Interrupt Processing, Block Diagram
terrupts may be processed in one of two modes (selectable through the F10 Setup utility):
♦
APIC mode
Processor
82801
Processing
Serial IRQ
IRQ14,15
INTA-..H-
,
14,15
Hard Drives
INTR-
SM Functions
PCI Peripherals
LPC47B387
I/O Cntlr.
Serializer
APIC bus
Interrupt
I/O &
IDE
IRQ3..7
9..12,
Interrupt
In
♦
8259 mode
hp compaq d330 and d530 Series of Personal Computers
Featuring the Intel Pentium 4 Processor
First Edition – June 2003
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