Datasheet

© 2007 Microchip Technology Inc. DS39605F-page 107
PIC18F1220/1320
12.7 Using Timer1 as a
Real-Time Clock
Adding an external LP oscillator to Timer1 (such as the
one described in Section 12.2 “Timer1 Oscillator”,
above), gives users the option to include RTC function-
ality to their applications. This is accomplished with an
inexpensive watch crystal to provide an accurate time
base and several lines of application code to calculate
the time. When operating in Sleep mode and using a
battery or supercapacitor as a power source, it can
completely eliminate the need for a separate RTC
device and battery backup.
The application code routine, RTCisr, shown in
Example 12-1, demonstrates a simple method to
increment a counter at one-second intervals using an
Interrupt Service Routine. Incrementing the TMR1 reg-
ister pair to overflow, triggers the interrupt and calls the
routine, which increments the seconds counter by one;
additional counters for minutes and hours are
incremented as the previous counter overflow.
Since the register pair is 16 bits wide, counting up to
overflow the register directly from a 32.768 kHz clock
would take 2 seconds. To force the overflow at the
required one-second intervals, it is necessary to pre-
load it; the simplest method is to set the MSb of TMR1H
with a BSF instruction. Note that the TMR1L register is
never preloaded or altered; doing so may introduce
cumulative error over many cycles.
For this method to be accurate, Timer1 must operate in
Asynchronous mode and the Timer1 overflow interrupt
must be enabled (PIE1<0> = 1), as shown in the
routine, RTCinit. The Timer1 oscillator must also be
enabled and running at all times.
EXAMPLE 12-1: IMPLEMENTING A REAL-TIME CLOCK USING A TIMER1 INTERRUPT SERVICE
RTCinit
MOVLW 0x80 ; Preload TMR1 register pair
MOVWF TMR1H ; for 1 second overflow
CLRF TMR1L
MOVLW b’00001111’ ; Configure for external clock,
MOVWF T1OSC ; Asynchronous operation, external oscillator
CLRF secs ; Initialize timekeeping registers
CLRF mins ;
MOVLW .12
MOVWF hours
BSF PIE1, TMR1IE ; Enable Timer1 interrupt
RETURN
RTCisr
BSF TMR1H, 7 ; Preload for 1 sec overflow
BCF PIR1, TMR1IF ; Clear interrupt flag
INCF secs, F ; Increment seconds
MOVLW .59 ; 60 seconds elapsed?
CPFSGT secs
RETURN ; No, done
CLRF secs ; Clear seconds
INCF mins, F ; Increment minutes
MOVLW .59 ; 60 minutes elapsed?
CPFSGT mins
RETURN ; No, done
CLRF mins ; clear minutes
INCF hours, F ; Increment hours
MOVLW .23 ; 24 hours elapsed?
CPFSGT hours
RETURN ; No, done
MOVLW .01 ; Reset hours to 1
MOVWF hours
RETURN ; Done