xref: /freebsd/share/man/man4/attimer.4 (revision 4f8f43b06ed07e96a250855488cc531799d5b78f)
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25.Dd May 26, 2014
26.Dt ATTIMER 4
27.Os
28.Sh NAME
29.Nm attimer
30.Nd i8254 Programmable Interval Timer (AT Timer) driver
31.Sh SYNOPSIS
32This driver is a mandatory part of x86 kernels.
33.Pp
34The following tunables are settable from the
35.Xr loader 8 :
36.Bl -ohang
37.It Va hint.attimer. Ns Ar X Ns Va .clock
38controls support for the event timer functionality.
39Setting this value to
40.Dv 0
41disables it.
42The default value is
43.Dv 1 .
44.It Va hint.attimer. Ns Ar X Ns Va .timecounter
45controls support for the time counter functionality.
46Setting this value to
47.Dv 0
48disables it.
49The default value is
50.Dv 1 .
51.It Va hw.i8254.freq
52allows overriding the default counter frequency.
53The same value is also available at run-time via the
54.Va machdep.i8254_freq
55sysctl.
56.El
57.Sh DESCRIPTION
58This driver uses i8254 Programmable Interval Timer (AT Timer) hardware
59to supply the kernel with one timecounter and one event timer, and to generate
60sound tones for the system speaker.
61This hardware includes three channels.
62Each channel includes a 16 bit counter which decreases with a known,
63platform-dependent frequency.
64Counters can operate in several different modes, including periodic and
65one-shot.
66The output of each channel has platform-defined wiring: one channel is wired
67to the interrupt controller and may be used as event timer, one channel is
68wired to the speaker and used to generate sound tones, and one timer is reserved
69for platform purposes.
70.Pp
71The
72.Nm
73driver uses a single hardware channel to provide both time counter and event
74timer functionality.
75To make this possible, the respective counter must be running in periodic mode.
76As a result, the one-shot event timer mode is supported only when time counter
77functionality is disabled.
78.Pp
79The event timer provided by the driver is irrelevant to CPU power states.
80.Sh SEE ALSO
81.Xr apic 4 ,
82.Xr atrtc 4 ,
83.Xr eventtimers 4 ,
84.Xr hpet 4 ,
85.Xr timecounters 4
86