Editing Embedded system (section)

===Interrupt-controlled system===
Some embedded systems are predominantly controlled by [[interrupt]]s. This means that tasks performed by the system are triggered by different kinds of events; an interrupt could be generated, for example, by a timer at a predefined interval, or by a serial port controller receiving data.

This architecture is used if event handlers need low latency, and the event handlers are short and simple. These systems run a simple task in a main loop also, but this task is not very sensitive to unexpected delays. Sometimes the interrupt handler will add longer tasks to a queue structure. Later, after the interrupt handler has finished, these tasks are executed by the main loop. This method brings the system close to a multitasking kernel with discrete processes.