◄ Wiki / OS
interrupt controller
The hardware traffic cop that decides which device interrupts reach the CPU and in what order.
With many devices all capable of raising IRQs, something has to collect, prioritize, and route them — that's the interrupt controller (for example the GIC on ARM chips). After a handler finishes, it tells the controller the interrupt is done, or 'retires' it, so the same signal isn't processed twice. It's the layer between raw device signals and the CPU's attention.
See also
- interrupt / IRQA hardware signal that yanks the CPU away from what it's doing to handle something urgent, like a keypress or timer.
- kernelThe core program of an operating system that controls memory, running programs, and hardware.