Atmel ARM-Based Evaluation Kit for SAM4S16C, 32-Bit ARM® Cortex® Microcontroller ATSAM4S-WPIR-RD ATSAM4S-WPIR-RD Data Sheet

Product codes
ATSAM4S-WPIR-RD
Page of 1231
85
SAM4S Series [DATASHEET]
Atmel-11100G-ATARM-SAM4S-Datasheet_27-May-14
All faults exceptions except for hard fault have configurable exception priority, see 
. The software can disable the execution of the handlers for these faults, see 
Usually, the exception priority, together with the values of the exception mask registers, determines whether the 
processor enters the fault handler, and whether a fault handler can preempt another fault handler, as described in 
.
In some situations, a fault with configurable priority is treated as a hard fault. This is called priority escalation, and 
the fault is described as escalated to hard fault. Escalation to hard fault occurs when:
A fault handler causes the same kind of fault as the one it is servicing. This escalation to hard fault occurs 
because a fault handler cannot preempt itself; it must have the same priority as the current priority level.
A fault handler causes a fault with the same or lower priority as the fault it is servicing. This is because the 
handler for the new fault cannot preempt the currently executing fault handler.
An exception handler causes a fault for which the priority is the same as or lower than the currently 
executing exception.
A fault occurs and the handler for that fault is not enabled.
If a bus fault occurs during a stack push when entering a bus fault handler, the bus fault does not escalate to a 
hard fault. This means that if a corrupted stack causes a fault, the fault handler executes even though the stack 
push for the handler failed. The fault handler operates but the stack contents are corrupted. 
Note:
Only Reset and NMI can preempt the fixed priority hard fault. A hard fault can preempt any exception other than 
Reset, NMI, or another hard fault.
Fault Status Registers and Fault Address Registers
The fault status registers indicate the cause of a fault. For bus faults and memory management faults, the fault 
address register indicates the address accessed by the operation that caused the fault, as shown in 
Lockup
The processor enters a lockup state if a hard fault occurs when executing the NMI or hard fault handlers. When the 
processor is in lockup state, it does not execute any instructions. The processor remains in lockup state until 
either:
It is reset
An NMI occurs
It is halted by a debugger.
Note:
If the lockup state occurs from the NMI handler, a subsequent NMI does not cause the processor to leave the lockup 
state.
Table 12-12.
Fault Status and Fault Address Registers
Handler
Status Register 
Name
Address Register 
Name
Register Description
Hard fault
SCB_HFSR
Memory 
management fault
MMFSR
SCB_MMFAR
Bus fault
BFSR
SCB_BFAR
Usage fault
UFSR