Interrupt-notification control unit, semiconductor integrated circuit and methods therefor

A semiconductor integrated circuit comprising:

• a processor;
• an interrupt-notification control unit that receives interrupt requests from a plurality of interrupt dispatchers and sends the received interrupt requests collectively to the processor;
• a peripheral macro connected with the processor;
• a delay control unit that controls a delay in a time to send the interrupt requests together to the processor based on priority levels of individual interrupt requests, and a condition register that stores conditions for the delay control unit to determine the delay in the time to send the interrupt requests, and
• wherein the interrupt-notification control unit includes a plurality of logic circuits, each being provided for each of the plurality of the interrupt dispatchers, determines a correlation among the interrupt requests from the plurality of interrupt dispatchers and supplies a signal indicating the time to send the interrupt requests collectively to the processor, and
• wherein the plurality of logic circuits send a corresponding interrupt request to the processor at the time.

A method of controlling interrupt requests from a plurality of interrupt dispatchers, comprising:

• receiving a respective interrupt request from each of the plurality of interrupt dispatchers;
• aggregating a plurality of interrupt requests based on a determination of whether the interrupt requests match a condition;
• and
• transmitting the aggregated interrupt requests collectively to a processor from a plurality of logic circuits that are each provided for each of the plurality of interrupt dispatchers in accordance with a signal indicating a time to send the interrupt requests and, where the plurality of logic circuits receive a determination that indicates the condition is met by the aggregated interrupt requests when a provisional delay condition value obtained by adding weight values corresponding to priority levels of the plurality of interrupt requests exceeds a delay condition threshold value.