Q6Computer Architecture
Question
Q.6. What do you mean by Interrupt?
Answer
An interrupt is a signal to the processor indicating that an event requiring immediate attention has occurred, causing the CPU to temporarily suspend its current program, save its state, and execute a dedicated interrupt service routine before resuming the original program.
An interrupt is a hardware or software-generated signal that notifies the processor of an event requiring immediate handling, causing the CPU to temporarily suspend execution of its currently running program, automatically save the necessary processor state (such as the program counter and relevant flags) onto the stack, and transfer control to a specific, predefined interrupt service routine (ISR) that handles the event; once the ISR completes, the processor restores the saved state and resumes the originally interrupted program from exactly where it left off. Interrupts are essential for handling asynchronous events (keyboard input, timer expiry, hardware device requests) efficiently, without requiring the CPU to continuously poll every possible event source in software.