What is "supervisor call instruction"

n. an instruction that interrupts the program being executed and passes control to the supervisor [syn: system call]

A Supervisor Call instruction (SVC) is a hardware instruction in the System/360 family of IBM mainframe computers up to contemporary zSeries (as well as non-IBM mainframe computers such as the Univac 90/60, 90/70 and 90/80, and the Fujitsu B8000 series) used to cause an interrupt to request a service from the operating system. The system routine providing the service is called an SVC routine. SVC is a specific implementation of a system call.