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Cortex-A8 Technical Reference Manual - ARM Information Center

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2.12 Operating modes<br />

Programmers Model<br />

There are eight modes of operation:<br />

• User mode is the usual <strong>ARM</strong> program execution state, and is used for executing most<br />

application programs<br />

• Fast interrupt (FIQ) mode is used for handling fast interrupts<br />

• Interrupt (IRQ) mode is used for general-purpose interrupt handling<br />

• Supervisor mode is a protected mode for the OS<br />

• Abort mode is entered after a data abort or prefetch abort<br />

• System mode is a privileged user mode for the OS<br />

• Undefined mode is entered when an Undefined Instruction exception occurs<br />

• Monitor mode is a Secure mode for the Security Extensions Secure Monitor code.<br />

Modes other than User mode are collectively known as privileged modes. Privileged modes are<br />

used to service interrupts or exceptions, or to access protected resources. Table 2-8 shows the<br />

mode structure for the processor.<br />

Table 2-8 Mode structure<br />

Modes Mode type Security state of core<br />

NS bit = 1 NS bit = 0<br />

User User Nonsecure Secure<br />

FIQ Privileged Nonsecure Secure<br />

IRQ Privileged Nonsecure Secure<br />

Supervisor Privileged Nonsecure Secure<br />

Abort Privileged Nonsecure Secure<br />

Undefined Privileged Nonsecure Secure<br />

System Privileged Nonsecure Secure<br />

Monitor Privileged Secure Secure<br />

<strong>ARM</strong> DDI 0344K Copyright © 2006-2010 <strong>ARM</strong> Limited. All rights reserved. 2-17<br />

ID060510 Non-Confidential

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