Large-scale timer hardware analysis for a flexible low-level timer-API design: work-in-progress

Abstract

We report on our ongoing development of an optimized low-level timer-API for the RIOT operating system. Starting with a survey of hardware timer peripherals from 43 MCU-families and 8 manufacturers, we identify common properties and differences of all available timer types. Based on this hardware analysis, we propose a lightweight yet powerful low-level timer-API design. It streamlines existing timer interfaces and relieves application developers from the error-prone task of repeatedly writing additional peripheral driver code.