Patent ID: 6986142

Claim:
A system comprising: A. a microphone having output leads; B. a speaker having input leads: and C. a processor including: i. a semiconductor chip having microphone input leads connected to the microphone output leads and having speaker output leads connected to the speaker input leads; ii. a processor formed on the chip and coupled to the microphone input leads and the speaker output leads, the processor including an ALU and selected registers that are associated with the ALU, each selected register being formed of a pair of first and second registers, the ALU storing program data in one of the first and second registers for each selected register; iii. a context change signal lead formed on the semiconductor chip, the context change signal lead carrying a signal having a first state indicating a context of a first set of program instructions operating on first data stored in the selected registers and a second state indicating a context of a second set of program instructions operating on second data stored in the selected registers; and iv. context switching circuitry formed on the semiconductor chip, the context switching circuitry being connected to the selected registers and the context change signal lead, the context change switching circuitry connecting one of the pair of first and second registers, for each selected register, to hold the first data in response to the first state of the context change signal and connecting the other of the pair of first and second registers, for each selected register, to hold the second data in response to the second state of the context change signal.