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Cortex-M4 Peripherals
ARM DUI 0553A
Copyright © 2010 ARM. All rights reserved.
4-9
ID121610
Non-Confidential
Hardware and software control of interrupts
The Cortex-M4 latches all interrupts. A peripheral interrupt becomes pending for one of the
following reasons:
•
the NVIC detects that the interrupt signal is HIGH and the interrupt is not active
•
the NVIC detects a rising edge on the interrupt signal
•
software writes to the corresponding interrupt set-pending register bit, see
, or to the STIR to make an interrupt pending, see
Software Trigger Interrupt Register
.
A pending interrupt remains pending until one of the following:
•
The processor enters the ISR for the interrupt. This changes the state of the interrupt from
pending to active. Then:
—
For a level-sensitive interrupt, when the processor returns from the ISR, the NVIC
samples the interrupt signal. If the signal is asserted, the state of the interrupt
changes to pending, which might cause the processor to immediately re-enter the
ISR. Otherwise, the state of the interrupt changes to inactive.
—
For a pulse interrupt, the NVIC continues to monitor the interrupt signal, and if this
is pulsed the state of the interrupt changes to pending and active. In this case, when
the processor returns from the ISR the state of the interrupt changes to pending,
which might cause the processor to immediately re-enter the ISR.
If the interrupt signal is not pulsed while the processor is in the ISR, when the
processor returns from the ISR the state of the interrupt changes to inactive.
•
Software writes to the corresponding interrupt clear-pending register bit.
For a level-sensitive interrupt, if the interrupt signal is still asserted, the state of the
interrupt does not change. Otherwise, the state of the interrupt changes to inactive.
For a pulse interrupt, state of the interrupt changes to:
—
inactive, if the state was pending
—
active, if the state was active and pending.
4.2.10
NVIC usage hints and tips
Ensure software uses correctly aligned register accesses. The processor does not support
unaligned accesses to NVIC registers. See the individual register descriptions for the supported
access sizes.
A interrupt can enter pending state even if it is disabled. Disabling an interrupt only prevents the
processor from taking that interrupt.
Before programming VTOR to relocate the vector table, ensure the vector table entries of the
new vector table are setup for fault handlers, NMI and all enabled exception like interrupts. For
more information see
NVIC programming hints
Software uses the CPSIE I and CPSID I instructions to enable and disable interrupts. The
CMSIS provides the following intrinsic functions for these instructions:
void __disable_irq(void) // Disable Interrupts
void __enable_irq(void) // Enable Interrupts