Software Interrupt Vs Hardware Interrupt

Difference Between Software Interrupt Vs Hardware Interrupt Tabular Form

Sno.	Software Interrupt	Hardware Interrupt
1.	Software interrupt can be invoked with the help of INT instruction.	Hardware interrupt is caused by some external device such as request to start an I/O or occurrence of a hardware failure.
2.	It is synchronous event.	It is an asynchronous event.
3.	The interrupt that is caused by any internal system of the computer system is known as software interrupt.	When the signal for the processor is from an external device or hardware then this interrupts is known as hardware interrupt.
4.	It is a type of interrupt that is caused either by a special instruction in the instruction set or by an exceptional condition in the processor itself.	It is a computer system interrupt that happens as a result of outside interference, whether that’s from the user, from peripherals, from other hardware devices or through a network.
5.	It is invoked by software, unlike a hardware interrupt, and is considered one of the ways to communicate with the kernel or to invoke system calls, especially during error or exception handling.	It is invoked by external hardware, unlike a software interrupt, and is considered one of the ways to communicate with the outside peripherals, hardware.
6.	PC incremented.	PC is not incremented.
7.	It has highest priority among all interrupts.	It has lowest priority than software interrupts.
8.	It cannot be ignored.	It can be ignored.
9.	It is drive by a predefined period of time usual a counter, that overflows or reaches zero, that triggers the interrupt routine.	It is from an external force for example a switch.
10.	Software interrupts can be classified into two types they are: 1. Normal Interrupts. 2. Exception	Hardware interrupts can be classified into two types they are: 1. Maskable Interrupt. 2. Non Maskable Interrupt.
11.	Normal Interrupts are those interrupts which are caused by the software instructions are called software instructions.	Maskable Interrupts are those hardware interrupts which can be delayed when a much highest priority interrupt has occurred to the processor.
12.	Exceptions are those unplanned interrupts while executing a program is called Exception. For example: while executing a program if we got a value which should be divided by zero is called an exception.	Non Maskable Interrupts are those hardware interrupts which cannot be delayed and should process by the processor immediately.