Microcontroller or microprocessor with dual mode interrupt

Abstract

A microcontroller has a CPU with at least one interrupt input coupled with an interrupt controller, a plurality of peripherals, and a mode register comprising at least one bit controlling an operating mode of the microcontroller. The microcontroller is configured to operate in a first operating mode wherein upon assertion of an interrupt by a peripheral of the microcontroller, the interrupt controller forwards an interrupt signal to the CPU and the peripheral sets an associated interrupt flag, wherein the interrupt causes the CPU to branch to a predefined interrupt address associated with the interrupt input. In a second operating mode, upon assertion of an interrupt by a peripheral of the microcontroller, the interrupt controller forwards an interrupt signal to the CPU and the CPU receives additional interrupt information from the peripheral that generated the interrupt, wherein the additional interrupt information is used to generate a vector address.

Description

[0001] Cross References to Related Applications [0002] This application claims priority to commonly-owned US Provisional Patent Application No. 62 / 129,481 filed March 6, 2015, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein for all purposes. technical field [0003] The present invention relates to microprocessors or microcontrollers. Background technique [0004] A microcontroller is a single chip on a chip that includes a central processing unit (CPU), memory, I / O interfaces, and a number of different peripherals (such as serial interfaces, analog-to-digital converters, PWM modulators, timers, etc.). system on a chip. In general, many applications do not require large amounts of processing power. Therefore, to keep costs low, some microcontrollers (such as 8-bit microcontrollers with a limited amount of program memory and data memory) can often be implemented without using any type of external or internal interrupts or with a limited number of interrupts, This is du...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

In many applications this may still not be enough and a higher end device must be chosen (e.g. 16-bit microcontroller or 32-bit microcontroller) since the interrupt capability of an 8-bit microcontroller is too restrictive fact

Furthermore, if such a microcontroller is intended to have an increased number of peripherals, the central processing unit may not be able to support the associated interrupt functionality due to limited interrupt functionality

Images