In the U-boot start up code (arch/arm/cpu/armv7/start.S), FIQ and IRQs are disabled using CPSR(current program status register).
Can you please tell me why we have to disable these interrupts in the startup code?
I would say for safety. U-boot may not be the first loader in the system, and if the loader is chained from another loaded, it may have already enabled interrupt sources that may occur. Disabling interrupts ensures that U-boot initialization phase is not altered by any unwanted interrupt.
Related
Im trying to find out how I can disable and enable interrupts on the STM32L4x6RG Nucleo?
After a bit of googling I found the macros __disble_irq() and __enable_irq() but I'm not convinced these are disabling interrupts.
After more investigation it seems that the cpsid instruction this macro maps to only has effect when it runs in supervisor context. So the question becomes how do I move to supervisor mode to disable interrupts and back again??
I found the macros __disble_irq() and __enable_irq() but I'm not
convinced these are disabling interrupts.
They do, unless you (or the OS you are using) explicitly leave privileged mode with the MSR control, Rn instruction, or the __set_CONTROL() function, which does the same.
So the question becomes how do I move to supervisor mode to disable
interrupts and back again??
The processor is in privileged mode after reset, and stays in it unless you tell it otherwise. It also enters privileged mode temporarily when executing an exception handler.
You can use the SVC instruction to call the SVC exception handler from user code, and run some code in privileged mode. There is a problem though, that the SVC handler invocation would be blocked too by __disable_irq(), so there would be no way to reenable them afterwards. Instead of __disable_irq(), you can adjust the BASEPRI register to selectively disable lower priority interrupts, and set SVC priority higher so that it would not be blocked.
The processor boots in privileged mode so unless you are running your application on top of an operating system or have switched to unprivileged mode yourself you should already be in privileged mode. If you are running you application on top of an OS you should use its services to handle interrupts and if no such service exists you should leave the interrupts alone.
If you have switched to unprivileged-mode yourself, you can use the svc instruction to trigger an svc-exception and the handler for the exception executes in privileged mode.
I was trying to enable Interrupts for an ARMv7A mcu (Cortex-A8) and I noticed I can't change the I bit in the CPSR register in user mode no matter what I try. I read around a bit and it seems like this is because I am in USR mode.
Is the only solution to call an SWI and change the SPSR in the SWI handler?
Indeed you cannot disable or enable interrupts in user mode. You can only do it in a privileged mode.
It's unusual to switch to user mode with interrupts disabled. Normally you only run a very small amount of code with interrupts disabled, since that delays the handling of the next interrupt. If you run part of an interrupt handler in user mode, first do whatever has to be done before re-enabling interrupts, and then switch to user mode.
I was learning about interrupts and came here to see if someone can help me!
A) I understand that the interrupt is the electrical signal sent by some external hardware to the processor, via one of the input ports.
B) I understand that in some MCU's more than one input port are "attached" to only one interrupt.
Can exist an useful input port in a MCU that is not linked to any interrupt at all?
A) I understand that the interrupt is the electrical signal sent by
some external hardware to the processor, via one of the input ports.
That is surely one class of interrupt, sure, as long as you understand that 'external hardware to the processor' can mean 'internal to the controller chip' - many MCU have extensive integrated peripherals.
B) I understand that in some MCU's more than one input port are
"attached" to only one interrupt.
Yes - that is not uncommon. The intrrupt-handler then has to poll the port to find out which GPIO/whatever pin generated the interrupt.
Can exist an useful input port in a MCU that is not linked to any
interrupt at all?
Sure, especially on 'trivial' controllers that do not require high-performace IO and have no RTOS.
Even higher-performance MCU apps may poll for sundry reasons. One common example is reading keypads. The input rate is very low and the mechanical switches need to be debounced. Fastening every KB read line to an interrupt line may cause unwanted multiple interrupts. Such iputs are better polled, though even then, a timer interrupt often handles the polling.
The answer is probably "yes," but it depends on the microcontroller architecture. There's no guarantee that one vendor's MCU will behave the same as any other (with respect to interrupts, ports, or anything else). If you're tasked with learning a particular MCU, then learn it, live it.
You house may have only one doorbell button. But pretty much anyone can use it for whatever reason. UPS there is a package. neighbor kid to play with your kid. someone trying to sell something and so on. A processor is no different. To reduce latency newer designs may have multiple interrupt signals on the core so that the handler doesnt have to do as much if any work to figure out who caused the interrupt. Kind of like having ringtones for every person on your phone, so you can tell without looking who is calling. Vs. one ringtone for everyone and you have to look.
Do not confuse external gpio ports on the chip with interrupt lines, they are not. they are general purpose I/O. they might have a way to be used as interrupts or not, depends on the design of the chip. Again as with the doorbell on your house, there are many things, technically all of them are within the chip (microcontroller), that create interrupts. Because software has to setup handlers before it can...handle...interrupts, all sources of interrupts are disabled at first, and only the ones software enabled have the ability to actually reach the core and cause an interrupt. Logic in the chip. so you may have an interrupt signal tied to the uart receiver and you might enable that. You might have one for the tx buffer, when it is empty interrupt. but you have to enable those before the processor can get an interrupt. there is a small section of logic that does fire an interrupt every time one of those events occurs, but that signal is gated and cannot reach the core, blocked by logic you control.
You can have timers in the mcu, that interrupt you when they roll over or count to zero. But you have to not only setup the timer to do that with software, you also have to enable the interrupt from making it across the chip from the timer to the processor core.
And yes sometimes the gpio peripheral has a way to interrupt the processor as well. as with everything else you have to with software setup the peripheral and define what interrupts you want and you have to enable them across the chip.
There are more different ways of doing this than there are companies making chips as they dont always do it the same way across their product lines. But generally at a minimum there is an interrupt enable on the peripheral end, one or many depending on the peripheral and features, that you have to enable in order for that signal to leave that peripheral on its way to the core. And there is often an interrupt controller peripheral or something built into the core or near it that takes all the dozens or hundreds of individual interrupt connections in the chip and prioritizes them and orrs them into the one or few interrupt lines into the core. you generally have to also enable the corresponding interrupt that matches the signal coming out of your peripheral to reach the processor core. And then there is sometimes an interrupt enable in the core itself so that even if you have the peripheral enabled, the interrupt controller enabled for that one peripherals interrupt, you still cannot interrupt the processor unless the interrupt enable in the processor core is enabled. That is the simple case, it can get more complicated if there are more layers of interrupt controllers along the way. Well the simple case is when you have something like a cortex-m with dozens or hundreds of individual interrupt signals, still have interrupt enables on both ends and in the core, just easier to manage as you have dozens to hundreds of interrupt handlers instead of one mega handler for everything.
So dont confuse the pins on the chip as being interrupts, on older dedicated processors, like the 8088/86, sure that was the one interrupt pin. But general purpose I/O sometimes called GPIO sometimes called ports, are just a peripheral, they are just pins you can make go high or low, they are not there to be interrupts although there may be a feature in that peripheral for that (or maybe there isnt). And again interrupt signals go through logic gates and have to be enabled, by software, at a minimum on both ends of that signal, at the peripheral and at the interrupt controller.
I am using mini2440 arm board, and GPIO to control the hardware connected with the GPIO. I am using BSP that ships with the cd of the board. I have only enabled functionality which I will need for running the hardware.
I have disabled audio, Ethernet and unnecessary stuff in kernel, so that it don;t cause interrupt hence CPU attention. But the problem is sometimes some interrupt occur on the GPIO and hardware do malfunction. I know I can see all interrupt via cat /proc/interrupt, but how should i know which interrupt occur on GPIO from which device?
I am running my application with highest nice priority (-20), but still sometime external interrupt occur.
When i send data on GPIO, only TimerTick of s3c2440 do interrupt, but that's fine, it is require, but not other. Please tell me how to find which interrupt occur (I know I can check it via cat /proc/interrupt) and how to disable (Disable interrupt on ethernet via ifconfig eth0 down) interrupt from kernel? Need some expert solution, I have tried the solution getting help from people but need some expert solution.
Disabling devices in the kernel has no real efect on interrupts (generated by the hardware), it just affects how software handles them. If the device isn't present, no interrupts get generated. And Linux was written by absolute performance freaks, barring misbehaving hardware the interrupt handling is nearly as good/fast as it could be.
What exactly are you trying to do? Are you sure you aren't trying to get performance that your machine just can't deliver?
Platform - ARM9
I have a third party device connected via I2C to the ARM9. My problem is the I2C read/write is getting in a twist. It appears the IRQ line is asserted but never de-asserted when there is data to read. The read fails as the third-party device NACKs the address packet. So any subsequent write fails.
I am wondering if my interrupt handling in ok. In the ISR that services the IRQ, I disable interrupts, unregister the interrupt handler and then signal to the task to go read from the I2C bus. Finally, I re-enable the interrupts.
When the task services the signal posted above, I attempt to read data from the I2C bus but this fails. Finally, I always reregister the ISR after ever read attempt. There is no interrupt disabling/enabling that takes place during handling of the read signal.
My question is do I need to disable interrupts when reading/writing to the I2C bus?
Programming language of choice is c using propriety RTOS.
An important thing is whether your RTOS/system is ready to support nested exceptions. Unless there is a good reason to do so, things are simpler if you avoid nested exceptions and disable all interrupts when entering an ISR and re-enabling when leaving.
If you want to allow other higher-priority interrupts to occur while you are serving the I2C interrupt, then disable only the I2C interrupt. It is rather unusual to unregister an interrupt handler when entering an ISR. This may lead to unexpected behaviour, when there is no registered handler, the interrupt itself is enabled and an interrupt occurs. So instead of unregistering the handler, simple disable the I2C interrupt (Perhaps you are already doing so, but as I see it, registering a handler and enabling an interrupt are two different things).
A good strategy to solve your problem will be to try to communicate with the device without interrupts. Try to read/write from it in a serial fashion, doesn't matter if everything blocks - it is just testing. This is much easier to debug and after you are successful you can move to the interrupts version.
Most interrupts need to be acknowledged or cleared. You mention enabling/disabling, registering/unregistering and handling the interrupt. Just check that the interrupt is being acknowledged and/or cleared/reset. Often this involves writing the interrupt number or bit back to the interrupt pending register. Check the specific ARM manual or your RTOS manual.
Whether you need to enable/disable interrupts for your target platform is dependant on your specific hardware/RTOS implementation. Unfortunately, every ARM microcontroller vendor (STMicro, Freescale, Oki, etc) has the ability implement their I2C hardware differently and may have different requirements in how to clear the IRQ.
I'd recommend you find a copy of the hardware datasheet (and/or post the specific hardware part-number here so we can help pour over the vendor documentation, with you).