What is the difference between hardware and software interrupts

Network devices, timers, etc. However, most modern computers can handle interrupts faster. Moreover, there are two main types of interrupts as hardware and software interrupt.

We will be discussing here these two types of interrupts and thereby discern the difference between hardware and software interrupt. What is Hardware Interrupt — Definition, Functionality 2. What is Software Interrupt — Definition, Functionality 3.

Hardware devices generate hardware interrupts. A hard disk can generate a hardware interrupt to inform that it has read a series of data blocks. A network device can create a hardware interrupt to indicate that it received data packets. Moreover, input devices such as mouse and keyboard can also create hardware interrupts.

Interrupt management and routing devices help to send the hardware interrupts directly to the CPU. So I would not consider them to be interrupt or exception. But that what I think! The articles here are fanstastic. Thanks for having this site. I have been learning Drupal lately on my own. Have you ever used Drupal? Any tips for me? I would appreciate any advice you have.

Thanks again — great site! Generally, each interrupt type is given a number which corresponds to its index in the interrupt table, so you know where to put each individual handler's vector. And some that are available to the chip vendor. ARM makes IP not chips, the chip vendor is provided with a number of interrupts they can choose to use however they wish.

Often they are tied to peripherals like usb, gpio, uart, spi, etc. ARM has one called swi software interrupt or svc. And like the number of soft interrupts in x86, this is for example so that an application can make a service call.

Can use this feature on the cortex-m but doesnt have the protection layers it provides a common interface for example when you have downloaded an rtos and want to write applications for it, the rtos is generic-ish and the applications are yours doing what you want or need to get done and can make calls into the rtos defined by the rtos using this interface.

Hardware interrupt is triggered by hardware like soundchip while software interrupt is triggered by software since it is a program instruction. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Collectives on Stack Overflow. Learn more. Asked 4 years, 2 months ago.

Active 3 years ago. Viewed 11k times. Improve this question. Possible Duplicate — izlin. A software interrupt is an instruction in a program. The CPU ceaselessly check every and each device hooked up thereto for sleuthing whether or not any device desires hardware attention.

Each device features a command-ready bit that indicates the standing of that device, i. NO Interrupt Polling 1. In interrupt, the device notices the CPU that it requires its attention. Whereas, in polling, CPU steadily checks whether the device needs attention. An interrupt is not a protocol, its a hardware mechanism. In interrupt, the device is serviced by interrupt handler.

While in polling, the device is serviced by CPU. Whereas CPU steadily ballots the device at regular or proper interval.