Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
34 lines (26 loc) · 1.6 KB

halt.md

File metadata and controls

34 lines (26 loc) · 1.6 KB

halt

halt is an instruction that pauses the CPU (during which less power is consumed) when executed. The CPU wakes up as soon as an interrupt is pending, that is, when the bitwise AND of IE and IF is non-zero.

Most commonly, IME is set. In this case, the CPU simply wakes up, and before executing the instruction after the halt, the interrupt handler is called normally.

If IME is not set, there are two distinct cases, depending on whether an interrupt is pending as the halt instruction is first executed.

  • If no interrupt is pending, halt executes as normal, and the CPU resumes regular execution as soon as an interrupt becomes pending. However, since IME=0, the interrupt is not handled.
  • If an interrupt is pending, halt immediately exits, as expected, however the "halt bug", explained below, is triggered.

halt bug

Under some circumstances, pc fails to be normally incremented.

The most typical trigger, halt with IME=0 and [IE] & [IF] != 0, causes the byte after the halt to be read twice.

The behavior is different when ei (whose effect is typically delayed by one instruction) is followed immediately by a halt, and an interrupt is pending as the halt is executed. The interrupt is serviced and the handler called, but the interrupt returns to the halt, which is executed again, and thus waits for another interrupt. (Source)