Interrupt handling

Updated: April 19, 2023

No matter how much we wish it were so, computers are not infinitely fast. In a realtime system, it's absolutely crucial that CPU cycles aren't unnecessarily spent. It's also crucial to minimize the time from the occurrence of an external event to the actual execution of code within the thread responsible for reacting to that event. This time is referred to as latency.

The two forms of latency that most concern us are interrupt latency and scheduling latency.

Note: Latency times can vary significantly, depending on the speed of the processor and other factors. For more information, visit our website (www.qnx.com).