To Turn An ATtiny817 Into A 150MHz Counter, First Throw Out The Spec Sheet

A person usually reads a facts sheet in a single of two methods. The initially is to choose every single spec at encounter benefit, figuring that the engineers have taken almost everything into account and introduced each amount as the absolute restrict that will reduce the Magic Smoke from escaping. The other way is to toss out the info sheet and just attempt what ever you want, figuring that the engineers played it as properly as achievable.

The latter circumstance appears to be to have been the determination guiding pushing an ATtiny way, WAY further than what the spec sheet says is feasible. In accordance to [SM6VFZ], the specs on the ATtiny817 exhibit that the 12-bit timer/counter D (TCD) need to be confined to a measly 32 MHz greatest frequency, previously mentioned which just one is meant to use the counter’s internal prescaler. But by utilizing a 10-MHz precision frequency generator as an external clock, [SM6VFZ] identified that inputs up to a little previously mentioned 151 MHz ended up countable with 1-Hz precision. Previously mentioned that issue, points started off to drift, but that is nevertheless fairly good general performance from anything cobbled with each other on an eval board in a decidedly suboptimal way.

We’d envision this result could lead to some interesting jobs, considering that the undocumented limit for this timer places it properly within just variety of a number of newbie radio allocations. Even if it does not show useful, that’s Alright — just observing how much items can be pushed is interesting far too. And it is not like this is the to start with time we’ve caught [SM6VFZ] persuading an ATtiny to do abnormal issues, either.

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