What is the difference between PIC (Programmable Interrupt Controller) and VIM (Vector Interrupt Controller)?

ARM processor related documentation talks ab开发者_运维知识库out VIC and I believe PIC comes from the Intel camp. Are they conceptually the same ?

Yes they are conceptually the same. Every microprocessor and microcontroller is implemented differently, so the terms are not very useful in general. "Programmable" may or may not imply that you can set vectors for individual interrupts, or you may or may not be able to change interrupt priorities. VIC simply implies that you can have individual hardware vectors for individual interrupts, instead of having to do the decoding in a single software interrupt handler (ie in the IRQ handler).