Final answer:
Processors handle interrupts at instruction boundaries to simplify the process of saving and restoring the execution state during interrupt handling.
Step-by-step explanation:
Processors handle interrupts at instruction boundaries because it allows for the state of the processor to be more easily saved and restored. When an interrupt occurs, the processor needs to temporarily halt its current tasks to address the interrupt, which could be anything from handling input-output operations to responding to a timer or attending to a hardware failure.
By ensuring that the processor deals with interrupts at instruction boundaries, it simplifies the process of suspending the current task because the processor is not in the middle of executing a complex instruction. This makes it easier to resume the interrupted task without risk of losing data or encountering errors.
To elaborate, once the interrupt is taken at an instruction boundary, the processor can save the necessary context of the execution such as the program counter, register states, and so forth, which would be required to resume the task post-interrupt handling. After the interrupt service routine is completed, the processor restores the saved context and resumes executing the interrupted task as if it was never halted.