Write down a brief note on cycle stealing

Question

Write down a brief note on cycle stealing?

Answer 1

Encounter of cycle stealing in the context of DMA (or Direct Memory Access). Either the DMA controller can employ the data bus when the Central Processing Unit does not require it, or it might force the Central Processing Unit to temporarily suspend operation. The latter method is named as cycle stealing.

Note that cycle stealing can be done only at exact break points in an instruction cycle.