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ATTIMER(4)		    Kernel Interfaces Manual		    ATTIMER(4)

NAME
       attimer -- i8254	Programmable Interval Timer (AT	Timer) driver

SYNOPSIS
       This driver is a	mandatory part of x86 kernels.

       The following tunables are settable from	the loader(8):

       hint.attimer.X.clock
       controls	support	for the	event timer functionality.  Setting this value
       to 0 disables it.  The default value is 1.

       hint.attimer.X.timecounter
       controls	 support  for  the  time  counter functionality.  Setting this
       value to	0 disables it.	The default value is 1.

       hw.i8254.freq
       allows overriding the default counter frequency.	  The  same  value  is
       also available at run-time via the machdep.i8254_freq sysctl.

DESCRIPTION
       This  driver uses i8254 Programmable Interval Timer (AT Timer) hardware
       to supply the kernel with one timecounter and one event timer,  and  to
       generate	 sound	tones  for the system speaker.	This hardware includes
       three channels.	Each channel includes a	16 bit counter which decreases
       with a known, platform-dependent	frequency.  Counters  can  operate  in
       several	different  modes, including periodic and one-shot.  The	output
       of each channel has platform-defined wiring: one	channel	 is  wired  to
       the interrupt controller	and may	be used	as event timer,	one channel is
       wired to	the speaker and	used to	generate sound tones, and one timer is
       reserved	for platform purposes.

       The  attimer driver uses	a single hardware channel to provide both time
       counter and event timer functionality.  To make this possible, the  re-
       spective	 counter  must	be running in periodic mode.  As a result, the
       one-shot	event timer mode is supported only when	time counter function-
       ality is	disabled.

       The event timer provided	by the	driver	is  irrelevant	to  CPU	 power
       states.

SEE ALSO
       apic(4),	atrtc(4), eventtimers(4), hpet(4), timecounters(4)

FreeBSD	14.3			 May 26, 2014			    ATTIMER(4)

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