US 2014/0351471 A1Published application

Handling and routing interrupts to virtual processes

AssigneeArm Limited

InventorsAnthony JEBSON, Andrew John TURNER, Matthew Lucien EVANS, Gareth James EVANS, Adam James MCNEENEY

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Abstract

An interrupt controller for controlling the routing and handling of interrupts received at a data processing apparatus including at least one physical processing unit configured to run at least one of a plurality of virtual processors and a memory. The interrupt controller includes redistribution circuitry with at least one data store corresponding to the unit, the data store storing a pointer to a virtual pending table storing currently pending virtual interrupts for a virtual processor currently running on the corresponding unit and a pointer to a pending table configured to store currently pending physical interrupts for the corresponding unit and an input configured to receive a virtual interrupt for interrupting a virtual processor. Control circuitry is configured to add the virtual interrupt to the virtual pending table and to store the virtual interrupt in the virtual pending table for the virtual processor that is stored in the memory.

Claims23

Dependent claims

An interrupt controller for controlling the routing and handling of interrupts received at a data processing apparatus, said data processing apparatus comprising at least one physical processing unit, said at least one physical processing unit being configured to run at least one of a plurality of virtual processors and a memory configured to store at least one virtual pending table for storing pending virtual interrupts for a corresponding one of said plurality of virtual processors, said interrupt controller comprising:

redistribution circuitry comprising at least one data store corresponding to said at least one physical processing unit, said at least one data store being configured to store a pointer to a virtual pending table configured to store currently pending virtual interrupts for a virtual processor currently running on said corresponding physical processing unit and a pointer to a pending table configured to store currently pending physical interrupts for said corresponding physical processing unit;
an input configured to receive a virtual interrupt for interrupting a virtual processor;
control circuitry configured to:
respond to receipt of said virtual interrupt to access said at least one data store in said redistribution circuitry corresponding to said at least one physical processing unit with which said virtual processor is currently associated, and
to determine from said data store whether said virtual processor of said virtual interrupt is currently running on said physical processing unit;
and
if it is, to add said virtual interrupt to said virtual pending table pointed to by said redistribution circuitry;
and
if it is not, to store said virtual interrupt in said virtual pending table for said virtual processor that is stored in said memory.

6 more elements

A method of controlling the routing and handling of interrupts received at a data processing apparatus, said data processing apparatus comprising at least one physical processing unit, said at least one physical processing unit being configured to run at least one of a plurality of virtual processors and a memory configured to store at least one virtual pending table for storing pending virtual interrupts for a corresponding one of said plurality of virtual processors, said method comprising the steps of:

receiving a virtual interrupt for interrupting a virtual processor;
determining which of said at least one physical processing units said virtual processor is currently associated with;
accessing a data store in redistribution circuitry corresponding to said at least one physical processing unit with which said virtual processor is currently associated;
determining from said data store whether said virtual processor of said virtual interrupt is currently running on said at least one physical processing unit;
if it is, adding said virtual interrupt to said virtual pending table pointed to by said redistribution circuitry;
and
if it is not, storing said virtual interrupt in said virtual pending table for said virtual processor that is stored in said memory.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.