How can I count something with high frequency?
Submitted By: Craig Steiner FAQ Last Modified: 07/10/06
- The 8052 microcontroller has internal timers (T0, T1, and T2 if you are using an 8052), but they are limited to the speed of your microcontroller, which is in turn limited to the speed of your crystal. If you have a standard Intel 8052 running with a 12MHZ crystal, your timers will be incremented 1,000,000 times per second (1MHZ). Since you are counting high/low transitions and the source must remain high or low for at least one cycle, the theoretical maximum resolution for such a configuration would be 500,000 (500Khz). Tricks and external components may be used to measure higher frequency events.
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