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Fast interrupt request is a specialized type of interrupt request, which is a standard technique used in computer CPUs to deal with events that need to be processed as they occur, such as receiving data from a network card, or keyboard or mouse actions. FIQs are specific to the ARM architecture, which supports two types of interrupts; FIQs for fast, low-latency interrupt handling, and standard interrupt requests , for more general interrupts.
An FIQ takes priority over an IRQ in an ARM system. Also, only one FIQ source at a time is supported. This helps reduce interrupt latency as the interrupt service routine can be executed directly without determining the source of the interrupt. A context save is not required for servicing an FIQ since it has its own set of banked registers. This reduces the overhead of context switching.