METHOD FOR IMPROVED INTERRUPT HANDLING WITHIN A MICROPROCESSOR

摘要

A method and apparatus for processing interrupts (30) received by a processor(45) during the processing of an instruction set by a processing pipeline (55) is disclosed. Initially, an interrupt (30) associated with an interrupt service routine is received during processing of the instruction set. In response to receipt of the interrupt (30), an interrupt instruction register(50) is accessed containing at least one interrupt instruction associated with the interrupt service routine. The at least one interrupt instruction is inserted directly into the processing pipeline (55) of the processor (45). The inserted instruction is then executed and control returns back to processing of the original instruction set after execution of at least one interrupt instruction.