FreeBSD manual
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HPET(4) FreeBSD Kernel Interfaces Manual HPET(4)
NAME
hpet - High Precision Event Timer driver
SYNOPSIS
To compile this driver into the kernel, place the following lines in your
kernel configuration file:
device acpi
The following tunables are settable from the loader(8):
hint.hpet.X.allowed_irqs
is a 32bit mask. Each set bit allows driver to use respective IRQ, if
BIOS also set respective capability bit in comparator's configuration
register. Default value is 0xffff0000, except some known broken
hardware.
hint.hpet.X.clock
controls event timers functionality support. Setting to 0, disables it.
Default value is 1.
hint.hpet.X.legacy_route
controls "LegacyReplacement Route" mode. If enabled, HPET will steal
IRQ0 of i8254 timer and IRQ8 of RTC. Before using it, make sure that
respective drivers are not using interrupts, by setting also:
hint.attimer.0.clock=0
hint.atrtc.0.clock=0
Default value is 0.
hint.hpet.X.per_cpu
controls how much per-CPU event timers should driver attempt to register.
This functionality requires every comparator in a group to have own
unshared IRQ, so it depends on hardware capabilities and interrupts
configuration. Default value is 1.
DESCRIPTION
This driver uses High Precision Event Timer hardware (part of the
chipset, usually enumerated via ACPI) to supply kernel with one time
counter and several (usually from 3 to 8) event timers. This hardware
includes single main counter with known increment frequency (10MHz or
more), and several programmable comparators (optionally with automatic
reload feature). When value of the main counter matches current value of
any comparator, interrupt can be generated. Depending on hardware
capabilities and configuration, interrupt can be delivered as regular I/O
APIC interrupt (ISA or PCI) in range from 0 to 31, or as Front Side Bus
interrupt, alike to PCI MSI interrupts, or in so called
"LegacyReplacement Route" HPET can steal IRQ0 of i8254 and IRQ8 of the
RTC. Interrupt can be either edge- or level-triggered. In last case
they could be safely shared with PCI IRQs. Driver prefers to use FSB
interrupts, if supported, to avoid sharing. If it is not possible, it
uses single sharable IRQ from PCI range. Other modes (LegacyReplacement
and ISA IRQs) require special care to setup, but could be configured
manually via device hints.
Event timers provided by the driver support both one-shot an periodic
modes and irrelevant to CPU power states.
SEE ALSO
acpi(4), apic(4), atrtc(4), attimer(4), eventtimers(4), timecounters(4)
HISTORY
The hpet driver first appeared in FreeBSD 6.3. Support for event timers
was added in FreeBSD 9.0.
FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE-p11 September 14, 2010 FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE-p11