Oscillator Unit:

 A microprocessor/microcontroller is a digital device made up of digital combinational and sequential

circuits.
 The instruction execution of microprocessor/controller occurs in sync with a clock signal.
 For a living being, the heart is responsible for the generation of heartbeat; whereas the oscillator unit of
embedded system is responsible for generating the precise clock for the processor.
 Quartz crystals and ceramic resonators are equivalent in operation.
 A quartz crystal is normally mounted in a sealed metal case with two leads protruding out of the case.
 Quartz crystal oscillators are available in the form of chips, and they can be used for generating the clock
pulses.
 The speed of the operation of a processor is always depends on clock frequency.
 However, we cannot increase the frequency blindly for increasing the speed of operation/execution.
 The total system power consumption increases is directly proportional to the clock frequency.
 The power consumption increases with increase in clock frequency.
 The accuracy of program execution depends on the accuracy of the clock signal.

Diagram

REAL – TIME CLOCK (RTC):

 The RTC is a system component responsible for keeping track of time.
 RTC holds the information like current time and current date of execution and supplies timing reference
to the system.
 RTC is intended to function even in the absence of power.
 For OS based ES, a timing reference is essential for synchronizing the operation of the OS kernel.
 The RTC can interrupt the OS kernel by asserting the interrupt line of the processor/controller.
 The OS kernel identifies the interrupt in terms of Interrupt Request ( IRQ) number generated by interrupt
controller.
WATCHDOG TIMER:
 If desktop windows system will hang up, then we have an option Cntrl+Alt+Del.
 In Embeded Systems doesnot have Cntrl+Alt+Del.
 But we have a WATCHDOG to monitor the firmware execution and reset the system professor, when the
system is hangs up.
 A WATCHDOG is a hardware timer for monitoring the firmware execution.
 Depending on the internal implementation, watchdog timer increments or decrements a free running
counter.
diagram