Interrupt controller and method of operation of an interrupt controller

Abstract

An interrupt controller, and method of operation of such an interrupt controller, are provided. The interrupt controller has an interrupt source interface for receiving interrupts from one or more interrupt sources, and a plurality of output interfaces, where each output interface is associated with a processing device that can execute an interrupt service routine to process an interrupt request issued to that processing device. The interrupt source interface has transaction generation circuitry to generate, for each received interrupt, an original transaction to represent the interrupt and a duplicate transaction to represent the interrupt. Buffer circuitry then buffers the original transaction and the duplicate transaction for each received interrupt, and selection circuitry is provided for selecting transactions from the buffer circuitry, and for routing each selected transaction for receipt by the output interface identified by an address portion of the selected transaction. Each output interface has queue storage comprising a plurality of queue entries, where each queue entry is allocated to a transaction received by the output interface and is used to store interrupt identifying information provided by a data portion of the transaction. The queue storage is arranged to maintain duplication tracking information to identify when both the original transaction and its associated duplicate transaction have been received by the output interface. Each output interface inhibits issuing an output signal that would cause an interrupt request for the original transaction to be sent to the associated processing device, until the duplication tracking information identifies that both the original transaction and the associated duplicate transaction have been received by that output interface. This provides an efficient functional safety compliant design for an interrupt controller.