Installation 15
2.7 8254 for Timer Pacer Generation

Timer 0

Timer 1

Timer 2

CLK0
GATE0 OUT0
CLK1
GATE1
CLK2
GATE2
OUT1
OUT2

8254 Timer/Counter

Digital Input Timer Pacer
Digital Output Timer Pacer

4MHz Clock

“H”
“H”
“H”
Figure 2.4 8254 configuration
The internal timer/counter 8254 on the PCI-7200 is configured as above
diagram (figure 2.4). User can use it to generate the timer pacer for both digital
input and digital output trigger.
The digital input timer pacer is from OUT0 (Timer 0), and the digital output
timer pacer is from OUT1 (Timer 1). Besides, Timer 0 and Timer 2 can be
cascaded together to generate more timer pacer frequency for digital input.
Also, the Timer 2 can be cascaded with Timer 1 for digital output.
pacer rate = 4 MHz / ( C0 * C2)
if Timer 0 & Timer 2 are cascaded
pacer rate = 4 MHz / C0
if timer 0 & Timer 2 are not cascaded
The maximum pacer signal rate of input and output are 4MHz/2=2Mhz. The
minimum signal rate is 4MHz/65535/65535, which is a very slow frequency
that user may never use it.
For example, if you wish to get a pacer rate 2.5 kHz, you can set C0 = 40 and
C2 = 40. That is
2.5KHz = 4Mhz / (40 x 40)