8085 Interrupts

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 Interrupts
• Interrupt is a process where an external device
can get the attention of the microprocessor.
– The process starts from the I/O device
– The process is asynchronous.

• Classification of Interrupts
– Interrupts can be classified into two types:
• Maskable Interrupts (Can be delayed or Rejected)
• Non-Maskable Interrupts (Can not be delayed or
Rejected)

• Interrupts can also be classified into:

• Vectored (the address of the service routine is hard-wired)
• Non-vectored (the address of the service routine needs to be
supplied externally by the device)
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 Interrupts

• What happens when MP is interrupted ?

– When the Microprocessor receives an interrupt
signal, it suspends the currently executing
program and jumps to an Interrupt Service Routine
(ISR) to respond to the incoming interrupt.
– Each interrupt will most probably have its own
ISR.
• Responding to an interrupt may be immediate or
delayed depending on whether the interrupt is
maskable or non-maskable and whether
interrupts are being masked or not.
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 The 8085 Interrupts
• When a device interrupts, it actually wants the
MP to give a service which is equivalent to asking
the MP to call a subroutine. This subroutine is
called ISR (Interrupt Service Routine)
• The ‘EI’ instruction is a one byte instruction and is
used to Enable the non-maskable interrupts.
• The ‘DI’ instruction is a one byte instruction and is
used to Disable the non-maskable interrupts.
• The 8085 has a single Non-Maskable interrupt.
– The non-maskable interrupt is not affected by the
value of the Interrupt Enable flip flop.

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 The 8085 Interrupts
• The 8085 has 5 interrupt inputs.
– The INTR input.
• The INTR input is the only non-vectored interrupt.
• INTR is maskable using the EI/DI instruction pair.

– RST 5.5, RST 6.5, RST 7.5 are all automatically

vectored.
• RST 5.5, RST 6.5, and RST 7.5 are all maskable.

– TRAP is the only non-maskable interrupt in the

8085
• TRAP is also automatically vectored

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 The 8085 Interrupts

Vectored Maskable Interrupt name

No Yes INTR
Yes Yes RST 5.5
Yes Yes RST 6.5
Yes Yes RST 7.5
Yes No TRAP

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 8085 Interrupts

TRAP
RST7.5
RST6.5
RST 5.5 8085
INTR
INTA

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 Interrupt Vectors and the Vector Table
• An interrupt vector is a pointer to where the ISR
is stored in memory.
• All interrupts (vectored or otherwise) are mapped
onto a memory area called the Interrupt Vector
Table (IVT).
– The IVT is usually located in memory page 00
(0000H - 00FFH).
– The purpose of the IVT is to hold the vectors that
redirect the microprocessor to the right place when
an interrupt arrives.

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• Example: Let , a device interrupts the
Microprocessor using the RST 7.5 interrupt line.
– Because the RST 7.5 interrupt is vectored,
Microprocessor knows , in which memory location
it has to go using a call instruction to get the ISR
address. RST7.5 is knows as Call 003Ch to
Microprocessor. Microprocessor goes to 003C
location and will get a JMP instruction to the actual
ISR address. The Microprocessor will then, jump
to the ISR location
– The process is illustrated in the next slide..

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The 8085 Non-Vectored Interrupt Process
1. The interrupt process should be enabled using the EI
instruction.
2. The 8085 checks for an interrupt during the execution of
every instruction.
3. If INTR is high, MP completes current instruction, disables
the interrupt and sends INTA (Interrupt acknowledge) signal
to the device that interrupted
4. INTA allows the I/O device to send a RST instruction
through data bus.
5. Upon receiving the INTA signal, MP saves the memory
location of the next instruction on the stack and the program
is transferred to ‘call’ location (ISR Call) specified by the
RST instruction

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The 8085 Non-Vectored Interrupt Process
6. Microprocessor Performs the ISR.
7. ISR must include the ‘EI’ instruction to enable the
further interrupt within the program.
8. RET instruction at the end of the ISR allows the
MP to retrieve the return address from the stack
and the program is transferred back to where the
program was interrupted.

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The 8085 Non-Vectored Interrupt Process
• The 8085 recognizes 8 RESTART instructions:
RST0 - RST7.
– each of these would send the execution to a
predetermined hard-wired memory location:
Equivalent Restart
to Instruction
CALL 0000H RST0
CALL 0008H RST1
CALL 0010H RST2
CALL 0018H RST3
CALL 0020H RST4
CALL 0028H RST5
CALL 0030H RST6
CALL 0038H RST7

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 Restart Sequence
• The restart sequence is made up of three
machine cycles
– In the 1st machine cycle:
• The microprocessor sends the INTA signal.
• While INTA is active the microprocessor reads the data
lines expecting to receive, from the interrupting device,
the opcode for the specific RST instruction.
– In the 2nd and 3rd machine cycles:
• the 16-bit address of the next instruction is saved on the
stack.
• Then the microprocessor jumps to the address
associated with the specified RST instruction.

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 Hardware Generation of RST Opcode

The following is an
example of generating
RST 5:

RST 5’s opcode is EF =

D D
76543210
11101111

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 Hardware Generation of RST Opcode
• During the interrupt acknowledge machine cycle,
(the 1st machine cycle of the RST operation):
– The Microprocessor activates the INTA signal.
– This signal will enable the Tri-state buffers, which
will place the value EFH on the data bus.
– Therefore, sending the Microprocessor the RST 5
instruction.

• The RST 5 instruction is exactly equivalent to

CALL 0028H

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 Issues in Implementing INTR Interrupts
• How long can the INTR remain high?
– The INTR line must be deactivated before the EI is
executed. Otherwise, the microprocessor will be
interrupted again.
– Once the microprocessor starts to respond to an
INTR interrupt, INTA becomes active (=0).

Therefore, INTR should be turned off as soon as

the INTA signal is received.

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 Issues in Implementing INTR Interrupts
• Can the microprocessor be interrupted again
before the completion of the ISR?
– As soon as the 1st interrupt arrives, all maskable
interrupts are disabled.
– They will only be enabled after the execution of
the EI instruction.

Therefore, the answer is: “only if we allow it to”.

If the EI instruction is placed early in the ISR, other
interrupt may occur before the ISR is done.

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 Multiple Interrupts & Priorities
• How do we allow multiple devices to interrupt
using the INTR line?
– The microprocessor can only respond to one
signal on INTR at a time.
– Therefore, we must allow the signal from only one
of the devices to reach the microprocessor.
– We must assign some priority to the different
devices and allow their signals to reach the
microprocessor according to the priority.

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 The Priority Encoder
• The solution is to use a circuit called the priority
encoder (74LS148).
– This circuit has 8 inputs and 3 outputs.
– The inputs are assigned increasing priorities
according to the increasing index of the input.
• Input 7 has highest priority and input 0 has the lowest.
– The 3 outputs carry the index of the highest
priority active input.
• The one draw back to this scheme is that the
only way to change the priority of the devices
connected to the 74366 is to reconnect the
hardware.
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 The 8085 Maskable/Vectored Interrupts
• The 8085 has 4 Masked/Vectored interrupt
inputs.
– RST 5.5, RST 6.5, RST 7.5
• They are all maskable.
• They are automatically vectored according to the
following table:
Vector Interrupt
002CH RST 5.5
0034H RST 6.5
003CH RST 7.5

– The vectors for these interrupt fall in between the vectors

for the RST instructions. That’s why they have names like
RST 5.5 (RST 5 and a half).
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 Masking RST 5.5, RST 6.5 and RST 7.5
• These three interrupts are masked at two levels:
– Through the Interrupt Enable flip flop and the EI/DI
instructions.
• The Interrupt Enable flip flop controls the whole
maskable interrupt process.
– Through individual mask flip flops that control the
availability of the individual interrupts.
• These flip flops control the interrupts individually.

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Maskable Interrupts and vector locations
RST7.5 Memory
RST 7.5

M 7.5

RST 6.5

M 6.5

RST 5.5

M 5.5

INTR

Interrupt
Enable
Flip Flop

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The 8085 Maskable/Vectored Interrupt Process

1. The interrupt process should be enabled using the

EI instruction.
2. The 8085 checks for an interrupt during the
execution of every instruction.
3. If there is an interrupt, and if the interrupt is
enabled using the interrupt mask, the
microprocessor will complete the executing
instruction, and reset the interrupt flip flop.
4. The microprocessor then executes a call
instruction that sends the execution to the
appropriate location in the interrupt vector table.

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The 8085 Maskable/Vectored Interrupt Process

5. When the microprocessor executes the call

instruction, it saves the address of the next
instruction on the stack.
6. The microprocessor jumps to the specific service
routine.
7. The service routine must include the instruction EI
to re-enable the interrupt process.
8. At the end of the service routine, the RET
instruction returns the execution to where the
program was interrupted.

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 Manipulating the Masks
• The Interrupt Enable flip flop is manipulated
using the EI/DI instructions.

• The individual masks for RST 5.5, RST 6.5 and

RST 7.5 are manipulated using the SIM
instruction.
– This instruction takes the bit pattern in the
Accumulator and applies it to the interrupt mask
enabling and disabling the specific interrupts.

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 How SIM Interprets the Accumulator
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

M5.5
M6.5
M7.5
MSE
SDO

R7.5
SDE
XXX
}
RST5.5 Mask
Serial Data Out 0 - Available
RST6.5 Mask
1 - Masked
RST7.5 Mask

Enable Serial Data Mask Set Enable

0 - Ignore bit 7 0 - Ignore bits 0-2
1 - Send bit 7 to SOD pin 1 - Set the masks according
to bits 0-2

Not Used Force RST7.5 Flip Flop to reset

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 Triggering Levels
• RST 7.5 is positive edge sensitive.
• When a positive edge appears on the RST7.5 line, a
logic 1 is stored in the flip-flop as a “pending” interrupt.
• Since the value has been stored in the flip flop, the line
does not have to be high when the microprocessor
checks for the interrupt to be recognized.
• The line must go to zero and back to one before a new
interrupt is recognized.

• RST 6.5 and RST 5.5 are level sensitive.

• The interrupting signal must remain present until the
microprocessor checks for interrupts.

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 Determining the Current Mask Settings
• RIM instruction: Read Interrupt Mask
– Load the accumulator with an 8-bit pattern
showing the status of each interrupt pin and mask.

RST7.5 Memory
RST 7.5
M 7.5
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
M5.5
M7.5
M6.5
P7.5
P6.5
P5.5
SDI

IE

RST 6.5

M 6.5

RST 5.5
M 5.5

Interrupt Enable
Flip Flop

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How RIM sets the Accumulator’s different bits

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

M6.5
M5.5
M7.5
P6.5
P7.5

P5.5
SDI

IE
}
RST5.5 Mask
Serial Data In 0 - Available
RST6.5 Mask
1 - Masked
RST7.5 Mask
RST5.5 Interrupt Pending
RST6.5 Interrupt Pending
RST7.5 Interrupt Pending Interrupt Enable
Value of the Interrupt Enable
Flip Flop

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 Pending Interrupts
• Since the 8085 has five interrupt lines, interrupts
may occur during an ISR and remain pending.
– Using the RIM instruction, it is possible to can read
the status of the interrupt lines and find if there are
any pending interrupts.

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 TRAP
• TRAP is the only non-maskable interrupt.
– It does not need to be enabled because it cannot
be disabled.
• It has the highest priority amongst interrupts.
• It is edge and level sensitive.
– It needs to be high and stay high to be recognized.
– Once it is recognized, it won’t be recognized again
until it goes low, then high again.

• TRAP is usually used for power failure and

emergency shutoff.
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 The 8085 Interrupts

Triggering Masking Interrupt

Memory Vectored Maskable
Method Method Name

Level
No No DI / EI Yes INTR
Sensitive

Level DI / EI RST 5.5 /

No Yes Yes
Sensitive SIM RST 6.5

Edge DI / EI
Yes Yes Yes RST 7.5
Sensitive SIM
Level &
Edge No Yes None No TRAP
Sensitive

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Thankyou

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