System Support

Maskable Interrupt processing is controlled and monitored through standard AT-type I/O-mapped registers. These registers are listed in Table 4-8.

 

Table 4-8.

 

Maskable Interrupt Control Registers

I/O Port

Register

020h

Base Address, Int. Cntlr. 1

021h

Initialization Command Word 2-4, Int. Cntlr. 1

0A0h

Base Address, Int. Cntlr. 2

0A1h

Initialization Command Word 2-4, Int. Cntlr. 2

The initialization and operation of the interrupt control registers follows standard AT-type protocol.

Non-Maskable Interrupts

Non-maskable interrupts cannot be masked (inhibited) within the microprocessor itself but may be maskable by software using logic external to the microprocessor. There are two non-maskable interrupt signals: the NMI- and the SMI-. These signals have service priority over all maskable interrupts, with the SMI- having top priority over all interrupts including the NMI-.

NMI- Generation

The Non-Maskable Interrupt (NMI-) signal can be generated by one of the following actions:

■Parity errors detected on a PCI bus (activating SERR- or PERR-).

■Microprocessor internal error (activating IERRA or IERRB)

The SERR- and PERR- signals are routed through the ICH8 component, which in turn activates the NMI to the microprocessor.

 

4-14

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Technical Reference Guide