Method and apparatus for prioritizing interrupts in a communication system

A communications system, comprising:

• a communications channel;
• a first processing unit adapted to monitor the communications channel and provide a plurality of status bits;
• and
• an interface unit, including:
• an interrupt register;
• a status register adapted to receive the status bits;
• an interrupt controller adapted to identify a plurality of interrupts in response to changes in the status bits, each interrupt having a priority, and to store selected interrupts in the interrupt register in an order determined by the priority of the interrupts;
• and
• an interrupt queue adapted to store the plurality of interrupts, wherein the interrupt controller is adapted to store the interrupts in the interrupt queue in response to changes to the status bits stored in the status register.

A communications system, comprising:

• a communications channel;
• a first processing unit adapted to monitor the communications channel and provide a plurality of status bits;
• and
• an interface unit, including:
• an interrupt register;
• an interrupt controller adapted to identify a plurality of interrupts in response to changes in the status bits, each interrupt having a type and a priority based on the type, and to store selected interrupts in the interrupt register in an order determined by the priority of the interrupts;
• and
• a mask register adapted to store a plurality of mask bits corresponding to at least a subset of the status bits, and the interrupt controller is adapted to ignore changes in the status bits with an asserted mask bit.

A method, comprising:

• monitoring a communications channel;
• providing a plurality of status bits associated with the monitoring;
• identifying a plurality of interrupts based on changes in the status bits, each interrupt having a type and priority based on the type;
• and
• storing selected interrupts in an interrupt queue in an order determined by the priority of the interrupts.

A method, comprising:

• monitoring a communications channel;
• providing a plurality of status bits associated with the monitoring;
• storing the status bits in a status register;
• identifying a plurality of interrupts based on changes in the status bits, each interrupt having a priority;
• storing selected interrupts in an interrupt queue in an order determined by the priority of the interrupts in response to changes to the status bits stored in the status register.

A method, comprising:

• monitoring a communications channel;
• providing a plurality of status bits associated with the monitoring;
• identifying a plurality of interrupts based on changes in the status bits, each interrupt having a priority;
• masking selected status bits;
• ignoring changes in the masked status bits;
• and
• storing selected interrupts in an interrupt queue in an order determined by the priority of the interrupts.

A communications system, comprising:

• means for monitoring a communications channel;
• means for providing a plurality of status bits associated with the monitoring;
• means for identifying a plurality of interrupts based on changes in the status bits, each interrupt having a type and a priority based on the type;
• and
• means for storing selected interrupts in an interrupt queue in an order determined by the priority of the interrupts.