Patent ID: 7689748

Claim:
A system comprising: a plurality of clients that perform processing tasks, and that signal interrupts in one or more of a plurality of manners; an interrupt handler coupled via a system bus to a host interface controller, at least one host processor, and through a memory controller to a system memory, the interrupt handler further coupled directly to the plurality of clients, wherein the interrupt handler is operable, to receive interrupts signaled by the plurality of clients; to arbitrate among the received interrupts to determine in what order the received interrupts are to be handled; to form an event message for each received interrupt signaled in one or more of the plurality of manners, wherein forming an event message comprises forming different event messages for different types of clients that; and to request the memory controller to write the event messages in an event buffer, such that the event messages are accessible via the system bus to the at least one host processor for processing as interrupts, wherein the at least one host handles interrupts specified by event messages according to the manner in which the interrupt were signaled, including performing a register write for a level-based interrupt.