AT91SAM9G20_1 Datasheet, PDF (42/832 Pages) ATMEL Corporation – AT91 ARM Thumb Microcontrollers

Minimum interrupt latency is maintained across both ARM state and Java state. Since byte
codes execution can be restarted, an interrupt automatically triggers the core to switch from
Java state to ARM state for the execution of the interrupt handler. This means that no special
provision has to be made for handling interrupts while executing byte codes, whether in hard-
ware or in software.
11.3.6
ARM9EJ-S Operating Modes
In all states, there are seven operation modes:
• User mode is the usual ARM program execution state. It is used for executing most
application programs
• Fast Interrupt (FIQ) mode is used for handling fast interrupts. It is suitable for high-speed data
transfer or channel process
• Interrupt (IRQ) mode is used for general-purpose interrupt handling
• Supervisor mode is a protected mode for the operating system
• Abort mode is entered after a data or instruction prefetch abort
• System mode is a privileged user mode for the operating system
• Undefined mode is entered when an undefined instruction exception occurs
Mode changes may be made under software control, or may be brought about by external inter-
rupts or exception processing. Most application programs execute in User Mode. The non-user
modes, known as privileged modes, are entered in order to service interrupts or exceptions or to
access protected resources.
11.3.7
ARM9EJ-S Registers
The ARM9EJ-S core has a total of 37 registers.
• 31 general-purpose 32-bit registers
• 6 32-bit status registers
Table 11-1 shows all the registers in all modes.
Table 11-1. ARM9TDMI Modes and Registers Layout
User and
System Mode
Supervisor
Mode
Abort Mode
Undefined
Mode
R0
R0
R0
R0
R1
R1
R1
R1
R2
R2
R2
R2
R3
R3
R3
R3
R4
R4
R4
R4
R5
R5
R5
R5
R6
R6
R6
R6
R7
R7
R7
R7
R8
R8
R8
R8
R9
R9
R9
R9
R10
R10
R10
R10
R11
R11
R11
R11
Interrupt
Mode
R0
R1
R2
R3
R4
R5
R6
R7
R8
R9
R10
R11
Fast Interrupt
Mode
R0
R1
R2
R3
R4
R5
R6
R7
R8_FIQ
R9_FIQ
R10_FIQ
R11_FIQ
42 AT91SAM9G20 Preliminary
6384D–ATARM–04-May-09