Standalone Platform-Level Interrupt Controller with Pre-Interrupt Thresholds

This study presents a standalone Platform-Level Interrupt Controller (PLIC) designed for efficient management of external interrupts in embedded systems. Supporting 32 interrupt sources, the proposed design introduces a novel per- interrupt threshold configuration, enabling fine-grained control over interrupt prioritization compared to standard RISC-V designs that use per-hart thresholds. The architecture employs a hierarchical arbitration mechanism and a claim/complete protocol, ensuring modularity and scalability across hardware platforms. Simulation results validate real-time interrupt handling with a latency of 7 clock cycles, while synthesis results confirm a compact area of 0.01545 mm2 and low power consumption of 0.0217 mW, demonstrating suitability for resource-constrained applications such as Internet of Things (IoT), automotive, and industrial systems.