xref: /freebsd/share/man/man4/attimer.4 (revision 193d9e768ba63fcfb187cfd17f461f7d41345048)
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25.\" $FreeBSD$
26.\"
27.Dd May 26, 2014
28.Dt ATTIMER 4
29.Os
30.Sh NAME
31.Nm attimer
32.Nd i8254 Programmable Interval Timer (AT Timer) driver
33.Sh SYNOPSIS
34This driver is a mandatory part of x86 kernels.
35.Pp
36The following tunables are settable from the
37.Xr loader 8 :
38.Bl -ohang
39.It Va hint.attimer. Ns Ar X Ns Va .clock
40controls support for the event timer functionality.
41Setting this value to
42.Dv 0
43disables it.
44The default value is
45.Dv 1 .
46.It Va hint.attimer. Ns Ar X Ns Va .timecounter
47controls support for the time counter functionality.
48Setting this value to
49.Dv 0
50disables it.
51The default value is
52.Dv 1 .
53.It Va hw.i8254.freq
54allows overriding the default counter frequency.
55The same value is also available at run-time via the
56.Va machdep.i8254_freq
57sysctl.
58.El
59.Sh DESCRIPTION
60This driver uses i8254 Programmable Interval Timer (AT Timer) hardware
61to supply the kernel with one timecounter and one event timer, and to generate
62sound tones for the system speaker.
63This hardware includes three channels.
64Each channel includes a 16 bit counter which decreases with a known,
65platform-dependent frequency.
66Counters can operate in several different modes, including periodic and
67one-shot.
68The output of each channel has platform-defined wiring: one channel is wired
69to the interrupt controller and may be used as event timer, one channel is
70wired to the speaker and used to generate sound tones, and one timer is reserved
71for platform purposes.
72.Pp
73The
74.Nm
75driver uses a single hardware channel to provide both time counter and event
76timer functionality.
77To make this possible, the respective counter must be running in periodic mode.
78As a result, the one-shot event timer mode is supported only when time counter
79functionality is disabled.
80.Pp
81The event timer provided by the driver is irrelevant to CPU power states.
82.Sh SEE ALSO
83.Xr apic 4 ,
84.Xr atrtc 4 ,
85.Xr eventtimers 4 ,
86.Xr hpet 4 ,
87.Xr timecounters 4
88