Synchronizing split user-mode/kernel-mode device driver architecture

摘要

A device driver includes a kernel mode and a user-mode module. The device driver may access device registers while operating in user-mode to promote system stability while providing a low-latency software response from the system upon interrupts. The device driver may include kernel stubs that are loaded into the operating system, and may be device specific code written. The stubs may be called by a reflector to handle exceptions caught by the stubs. A reset stub may be invoked by the reflector when the user-mode module or host terminates abruptly or detects an interrupt storm. The reset stub may also be invoked if errant direct memory access DMA operations are being performed by a hardware device. The reset stub may ensure that hardware immediately stops unfinished DMA from further transfer, and may be called by the user-mode driver module.