Microcontrollers (cont’d)
Other features not usually found ingeneral-purpose CPUs
- expanded interrupt handling capabilities
- multiple interrupts with priority and selective enable/disable
- automatic saving of context before handling interrupt
- interrupt vectoring to quickly jump to handlers
- more instructions for bit manipulations
- support operations on bits (signal wires) rather than just words
Integrated memory and support functions for cheaper system cost
- built-in EPROM, Flash, and/or RAM
- DRAM controller to handle refresh
- page-mode support for faster block transfers