Interrupt allocation

Overview

The ESP32 has two cores, with 32 interrupts each. Each interrupt has a certain priority level, most (but not all) interrupts are connected to the interrupt mux. Because there are more interrupt sources than interrupts, sometimes it makes sense to share an interrupt in multiple drivers. The esp_intr_alloc abstraction exists to hide all these implementation details.

A driver can allocate an interrupt for a certain peripheral by calling esp_intr_alloc (or esp_intr_alloc_sintrstatus). It can use the flags passed to this function to set the type of interrupt allocated, specifying a specific level or trigger method. The interrupt allocation code will then find an applicable interrupt, use the interrupt mux to hook it up to the peripheral, and install the given interrupt handler and ISR to it.

This code has two different types of interrupts it handles differently: Shared interrupts and non-shared interrupts. The simplest of the two are non-shared interrupts: a separate interrupt is allocated per esp_intr_alloc call and this interrupt is solely used for the peripheral attached to it, with only one ISR that will get called. Non-shared interrupts can have multiple peripherals triggering it, with multiple ISRs being called when one of the peripherals attached signals an interrupt. Thus, ISRs that are intended for shared interrupts should check the interrupt status of the peripheral they service in order to see if any action is required.

Non-shared interrupts can be either level- or edge-triggered. Shared interrupts can only be level interrupts (because of the chance of missed interrupts when edge interrupts are used.) (The logic behind this: DevA and DevB share an int. DevB signals an int. Int line goes high. ISR handler calls code for DevA -> does nothing. ISR handler calls code for DevB, but while doing that, DevA signals an int. ISR DevB is done, clears int for DevB, exits interrupt code. Now an interrupt for DevA is still pending, but because the int line never went low (DevA kept it high even when the int for DevB was cleared) the interrupt is never serviced.)

Multicore issues

Peripherals that can generate interrupts can be divided in two types: external peripherals, outside the Xtensa cores in the ESP32, and internal peripherals, inside the ESP32. Interrupt handling differs slightly between these two types of peripherals.

Each Xtensa core has its own set of internal peripherals: three timer comparators, a performance monitor and two software interrupts. These peripherals can only be configured from the core they are associated with. When generating an interrupt, the interrupt they generate is hard-wired to their associated core; it’s not possible to have e.g. an internal timer comparator of one core generate an interrupt on another core. That is why these sources can only be managed using a task running on that specific core. Internal interrupt sources are still allocatable using esp_intr_alloc as normal, but they cannot be shared and will always have a fixed interrupt level (namely, the one associated in hardware with the peripheral). Internal interrupt sources are defined in esp_intr_alloc.h as ETS_INTERNAL_*_INTR_SOURCE.

The remaining interrupt slots in both cores are wired to an interrupt multiplexer, which can be used to route any external interrupt source to any of these interrupt slots. Allocating an external interrupt will always allocate it on the core that does the allocation, and freeing the interrupt should always happen on the same core. Disabling and enabling the interrupt from another core is allowed, however. External interrupts can share an interrupt slot bu passing ESP_INTR_FLAG_SHARED as a flag to esp_intr_alloc. External interrupt sources are defined in soc/soc.h as ETS_*_INTR_SOURCE.

Care should be taken when allocating an interrupt using a task not pinned to a certain core; while running code not in a critical secion, these tasks can migrate between cores at any moment, possibly making an interrupt operation fail because of the reasons mentioned above. It is advised to always use xTaskCreatePinnedToCore with a specific CoreID argument to create tasks that will handle interrupts.

Application Example

API Reference

Macros

Warning

doxygendefine: Cannot find define “ESP_INTR_FLAG_LEVEL1” in doxygen xml output for project “esp32-idf” from directory: xml/

Warning

doxygendefine: Cannot find define “ESP_INTR_FLAG_LEVEL2” in doxygen xml output for project “esp32-idf” from directory: xml/

Warning

doxygendefine: Cannot find define “ESP_INTR_FLAG_LEVEL3” in doxygen xml output for project “esp32-idf” from directory: xml/

Warning

doxygendefine: Cannot find define “ESP_INTR_FLAG_LEVEL4” in doxygen xml output for project “esp32-idf” from directory: xml/

Warning

doxygendefine: Cannot find define “ESP_INTR_FLAG_LEVEL5” in doxygen xml output for project “esp32-idf” from directory: xml/

Warning

doxygendefine: Cannot find define “ESP_INTR_FLAG_LEVEL6” in doxygen xml output for project “esp32-idf” from directory: xml/

Warning

doxygendefine: Cannot find define “ESP_INTR_FLAG_NMI” in doxygen xml output for project “esp32-idf” from directory: xml/

Warning

doxygendefine: Cannot find define “ESP_INTR_FLAG_LOWMED” in doxygen xml output for project “esp32-idf” from directory: xml/

Warning

doxygendefine: Cannot find define “ESP_INTR_FLAG_HIGH” in doxygen xml output for project “esp32-idf” from directory: xml/

Warning

doxygendefine: Cannot find define “ESP_INTR_FLAG_SHARED” in doxygen xml output for project “esp32-idf” from directory: xml/

Warning

doxygendefine: Cannot find define “ESP_INTR_FLAG_EDGE” in doxygen xml output for project “esp32-idf” from directory: xml/

Warning

doxygendefine: Cannot find define “ESP_INTR_FLAG_IRAM” in doxygen xml output for project “esp32-idf” from directory: xml/

Warning

doxygendefine: Cannot find define “ESP_INTR_FLAG_INTRDISABLED” in doxygen xml output for project “esp32-idf” from directory: xml/

Type Definitions

Enumerations

Structures

Functions

Warning

doxygenfunction: Cannot find function “esp_intr_mark_shared” in doxygen xml output for project “esp32-idf” from directory: xml/

Warning

doxygenfunction: Cannot find function “esp_intr_reserve” in doxygen xml output for project “esp32-idf” from directory: xml/

Warning

doxygenfunction: Cannot find function “esp_intr_alloc” in doxygen xml output for project “esp32-idf” from directory: xml/

Warning

doxygenfunction: Cannot find function “esp_intr_alloc_intrstatus” in doxygen xml output for project “esp32-idf” from directory: xml/

Warning

doxygenfunction: Cannot find function “esp_intr_free” in doxygen xml output for project “esp32-idf” from directory: xml/

Warning

doxygenfunction: Cannot find function “esp_intr_get_cpu” in doxygen xml output for project “esp32-idf” from directory: xml/

Warning

doxygenfunction: Cannot find function “esp_intr_get_intno” in doxygen xml output for project “esp32-idf” from directory: xml/

Warning

doxygenfunction: Cannot find function “esp_intr_disable” in doxygen xml output for project “esp32-idf” from directory: xml/

Warning

doxygenfunction: Cannot find function “esp_intr_enable” in doxygen xml output for project “esp32-idf” from directory: xml/

Warning

doxygenfunction: Cannot find function “esp_intr_noniram_disable” in doxygen xml output for project “esp32-idf” from directory: xml/

Warning

doxygenfunction: Cannot find function “esp_intr_noniram_enable” in doxygen xml output for project “esp32-idf” from directory: xml/