Device and method for performing high-speed low overhead context switch

摘要

A device (10) and a method for performing high speed low overhead context switch, and especially in processors that handle multilevel nested tasks. The device (10) handles forward requests (81) and backward requests (82). The device (10) is coupled to a CPU (50) and has a plurality of register files (20, 30) and a direct memory access mechanism that allows the processor to respond to the forward request (81) by starting to handle a higher priority task using a first register file (20) while transferring the halted task context to a context save area within a memory module (60). The processor responds to the backward request (82) by using the context that is stored in a first register file (20), while transferring to a second register file (30) a lower priority task context. <IMAGE>