Software defined radios necessitate the routing of analog wireless signals
between data links via a software circuit switching router implemented in a processor.
Processor utilization by the software router is decreased by disabling the interrupts
of all but one analog channel per communication link, this channel being termed
the Anchor channel for its link. Data from all channels in the link is transferred
during the Anchor link's interrupt. The increase in the Anchor channel's interrupt
latency due to transferring data from other channels is more than offset by the
overall reduction in the number of processor interrupts generated. As a result,
utilization of the processor by the software router is reduced, allowing the processor
to manage other time-critical tasks and/or a greater number of tasks in a given
time period.
