System Resources; Interrupts; Figure 4-9. Maskable Interrupt - HP Deskpro EX Technical Reference Manual

4.4

SYSTEM RESOURCES

This section describes the availability and basic control of major subsystems, otherwise known as
resource allocation or simply "system resources." System resources are provided on a priority
basis through hardware interrupts and DMA requests and grants.

4.4.1 INTERRUPTS

The microprocessor uses two types of hardware interrupts; maskable and nonmaskable. A
maskable interrupt can be enabled or disabled within the microprocessor by the use of the STI and
CLI instructions. A nonmaskable interrupt cannot be masked off within the microprocessor,
although it may be inhibited by hardware or software means external to the microprocessor.
4.4.1.1 Maskable Interrupts
The maskable interrupt is a hardware-generated signal used by peripheral functions within the
system to get the attention of the microprocessor. Peripheral functions produce a unique INTA-H
(PCI) or IRQ0-15 (ISA) signal that is routed to interrupt processing logic that asserts the interrupt
(INTR-) input to the microprocessor. The microprocessor halts execution to determine the source
of the interrupt and then services the peripheral as appropriate. Figure 4-9 shows the routing of
PCI and ISA interrupts. Most IRQs are routed through the I/O controller, which contains a
serializing function. A serialized interrupt stream is applied to the 82801 ICH.
I/O &
SM Functions
IDE
Hard Drives
PCI Peripherals
Figure 4-9. Maskable Interrupt Processing, Block Diagram
The 82801 ICH component can be configured (through the Setup utility) to handle interrupts in
one of two modes of operation:
8259 mode
APIC mode
LPC47B357
IRQ3..7,
I/O Cntlr.
9..12,
14,15
Interrupt
Serializer
IRQ14,15
INTA-..D-
Compaq Deskpro EX Series of Personal Computers
First Edition - August 2000
Serial IRQ
82801
ICH
Interrupt
Processing
Technical Reference Guide
INTR-
Microprocessor
APIC Bus
4-15