Direct Memory Access (DMA) is essential for embedded systems, since it allows large quantities of information to be transferred to or from memory, without using a core processor.
- CPU sets up a device such as a disk drive for DMA transfer, and disables DMA interrupts
- Data is transferred into DMA memory, while the CPU is freed to handle other tasks.
- Once the data transfer is completed, the CPU is interrupted to allow it to handle cleanup after the DMA transfer.
