Patent ID: 7257658

Claim:
A method of processing interrupts in a computer system having a memory and at least one processor, said computer system being connected to one or more devices, the method comprising: in response to an interrupt request from an individual one of said devices, sending an interrupt message to an interrupt controller of the processor, said interrupt message comprising a memory address and interrupt status information, said memory address being specifically allocated to the device having issued the interrupt request, said interrupt status information indicating an interrupt status of said device; updating, by said interrupt controller, an interrupt table stored in said memory using the interrupt status information comprised in the interrupt message, said interrupt table holding device specific interrupt statuses, wherein updating the interrupt table comprises: addressing the memory using the memory address comprised in the interrupt message; wherein the method further comprises, after having updated the interrupt table calling, by said interrupt controller, an interrupt handler; accessing, by the interrupt handler, said interrupt table to identify device specific interrupt statuses not being settled, wherein said interrupt table comprises a plurality of individually addressable data fields each pertaining to different ones of said devices, each data field being addressed by means of the memory address comprised in said interrupt message, each data field holding a respective device specific interrupt status, and wherein the interrupt handler identifies device specific interrupt statuses not being settled by sequentially accessing each one of said plurality of individually addressable data fields.