8051 Microcontroller

Timer / Counter
Subject: MICROPROCESSORS AND MICROCONTROLLERS Code: 3160914

N. V. SINHA, LDCE
• A timer is a specialized type of clock which is used to measure time
intervals. A timer that counts from zero upwards for measuring time
elapsed is often called a stopwatch. It is a device that counts down
from a specified time interval and used to generate a time delay, for
example, an hourglass is a timer.

• A counter is a device that stores (and sometimes displays) the number

of times a particular event or process occurred, with respect to a clock
signal. It is used to count the events happening outside the
microcontroller. In electronics, counters can be implemented quite
easily using register-type circuits such as a flip-flop.

N. V. SINHA, LDCE 2
 Timers Counters

The register is incremented for every machine cycle The register is incremented considering 1 to 0
transition at its corresponding to an external input pin
(T0, T1)

Maximum count rate is 1/12 of the oscillator frequency Maximum count rate is 1/24 of the oscillator frequency

A timer uses the frequency of the internal clock, and A counter uses an external signal to count pulses
generates delay

N. V. SINHA, LDCE 3
 TL0
T0
TH0
Timers
TL1
T1
TH1
N. V. SINHA, LDCE 4
Timers
• Timer 0 and Timer 1 are 16-bit wide
• Each 16 bit is accessed as two separate registers of low-byte and
high-byte

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/embedded_systems

N. V. SINHA, LDCE 5
• Both Timer 0 and Timer 1 use the same register to set the various
timer operation modes.
• It is an 8-bit register in which the lower 4 bits are set aside for Timer 0
and the upper four bits for Timers.
• In each case, the lower 2 bits are used to set the timer mode in
advance and the upper 2 bits are used to specify the location
• Gate − When set, the timer only runs while INT(0,1) is high
• C/� − Counter/Timer select bit
• M1 − Mode bit 1
• M0 − Mode bit 0

N. V. SINHA, LDCE 6
 D7 D6 D5 D4 D3 D2 D1 D0
Gate C/� M1 M0 Gate C/� M1 M0
Timer 1 Timer 0

Gate = 0, T0 or T1 is enabled, if TR0 or TR1 is set

D7 / D3 Gate
Gate = 1, T0 or T1 is enabled, if ���0 = 1 and TR0 = 1 or ���1 = 1 and TR1 = 1
Set to 1 by program to make timer 1/0 act as a counter by counting pulses from external input pins
D6 / D2 C/�
3.5(T1) or 3.4(T0). Cleared to 0 by program to make timer act as timer by counting internal frequency
D5 / D1 M1
Mode select bits
D4 / D0 M0

M1 M0 Mode
0 0 0 - 13-bit timer mode
0 1 1 - 16-bit timer mode
1 0 2 - 8-bit auto reload mode
1 1 3 - Spilt mode

Bit addressable as TMOD.0 to TMOD.7

N. V. SINHA, LDCE 7
 D7 D6 D5 D4 D3 D2 D1 D0
TF1 TR1 TF0 TR0 IE1 IT1 IE0 IT0

D7 TF1 Timer 1 overflow flag

D6 TR1 Timer 1 run control bit
D5 TF0 Timer 0 overflow flag
D4 TR0 Timer 0 run control bit
D3 IE1 External interrupt 1 edge flag
D2 IT1 External interrupt 1 signal type control bit
D1 IE0 External interrupt 0 edge flag
D0 IT0 External interrupt 0 signal type control bit

Bit addressable as TCON.0 to TCON.7

N. V. SINHA, LDCE 8
• The start and stop of a timer is controlled by software using the
instruction SETB TR1 and CLR TR1 for timer 1, and SETB TR0 and
CLR TR0 for timer 0.

• The SETB instruction is used to start it and it is stopped by the CLR

instruction. These instructions start and stop the timers as long as
GATE = 0 in the TMOD register. Timers can be started and stopped by
an external source by making GATE = 1 in the TMOD register.

N. V. SINHA, LDCE 9
• This bit in the TMOD register is used to decide whether a timer is used as a
delay generator or an event manager. If C/� = 0, it is used as a timer for timer
delay generation. The clock source to create the time delay is the crystal
frequency of the 8051. If C/� = 0, the crystal frequency attached to the 8051
also decides the speed at which the 8051 timer ticks at a regular interval.

• Timer frequency is always 1/12th of the frequency of the crystal attached to the
8051. Although various 8051 based systems have an XTAL frequency of 10
MHz to 40 MHz, we normally work with the XTAL frequency of 11.0592 MHz. It
is because the baud rate for serial communication of the 8051. XTAL =
11.0592 allows the 8051 system to communicate with the PC with no errors

N. V. SINHA, LDCE 10
• Both Timer 1 and Timer 0 in Mode 0 operate as 8-bit counters (with a
divide-by-32 prescaler). Timer register is configured as a 13-bit register
consisting of all the 8 bits of TH1 and the lower 5 bits of TL1. The
upper 3 bits of TL1 are indeterminate and should be ignored. Setting
the run flag (TR1) does not clear the register. The timer interrupt flag
TF1 is set when the count rolls over from all 1s to all 0s. Mode 0
operation is the same for Timer 0 as it is for Timer 1.

N. V. SINHA, LDCE 11
• Timer mode "1" is a 16-bit timer and is a commonly used mode. It
functions in the same way as 13-bit mode except that all 16 bits are
used. TLx is incremented starting from 0 to a maximum 255. Once the
value 255 is reached, TLx resets to 0 and then THx is incremented by
1. As being a full 16-bit timer, the timer may contain up to 65536
distinct values and it will overflow back to 0 after 65,536 machine
cycles.

N. V. SINHA, LDCE 12
• Both the timer registers are configured as 8-bit counters (TL1 and TL0)
with automatic reload. Overflow from TL1 (TL0) sets TF1 (TF0) and
also reloads TL1 (TL0) with the contents of Th1 (TH0), which is preset
by software. The reload leaves TH1 (TH0) unchanged.

• The benefit of auto-reload mode is that you can have the timer to
always contain a value from 200 to 255. If you use mode 0 or 1, you
would have to check in the code to see the overflow and, in that case,
reset the timer to 200. In this case, precious instructions check the
value and/or get reloaded. In mode 2, the microcontroller takes care of
this. Once you have configured a timer in mode 2, you don't have to
worry about checking to see if the timer has overflowed, nor do you
have to worry about resetting the value because the microcontroller
hardware will do it all for you. The auto-reload mode is used for
establishing a common baud rate.
N. V. SINHA, LDCE 13
• Timer mode "3" is known as split-timer mode. When Timer 0 is placed
in mode 3, it becomes two separate 8-bit timers. Timer 0 is TL0 and
Timer 1 is TH0. Both the timers count from 0 to 255 and in case of
overflow, reset back to 0. All the bits that are of Timer 1 will now be tied
to TH0.

• When Timer 0 is in split mode, the real Timer 1 (i.e. TH1 and TL1) can
be set in modes 0, 1 or 2, but it cannot be started/stopped as the bits
that do that are now linked to TH0. The real timer 1 will be incremented
with every machine cycle.

N. V. SINHA, LDCE 14
Initializing a Timer
• Now, Timer 0 is in 16-bit timer mode, but the timer is not running. To
start the timer in running mode, set the TR0 bit by executing the
following instruction in TCON register (Bit addressable as TCON.0 to
TCON.7)

• SETB TCON.4
D7 D6 D5 D4 D3 D2 D1 D0
TF1 TR1 TF0 TR0 IE1 IT1 IE0 IT0
1

N. V. SINHA, LDCE 15
Initializing a Timer
• Decide the timer mode. Consider a 16-bit timer that runs continuously,
and is independent of any external pins.
• Initialize the TMOD SFR. Use the lowest 4 bits of TMOD and consider
Timer 0. Keep the two bits, GATE 0 and C/T 0, as 0, since we want the
timer to be independent of the external pins. As 16-bit mode is timer
mode 1, clear T0M1 and set T0M0. Effectively, the only bit to turn on is
bit 0 of TMOD. Now execute the following instruction
D7 D6 D5 D4 D3 D2 D1 D0

• MOV TMOD,#01h Gate C / T' M1 M0 Gate C / T' M1 M0

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Timer 1 Timer 0

N. V. SINHA, LDCE 16