Most computers have hardware clocks and timers that provide three basic
functions:
- Give the current time
- Give the elapsed time.
- Set a timer to trigger operation X at time T
These functions are used heavily by the operating system, as well as by time sensitive applications. Unfortunately, the system calls that implement these functions are not standardized across operating systems.
The hardware to measure elapsed time and to trigger operations is called a programmable interval timer. It can be set to wait a certain amount of time and then generate an interrupt, and it can be set to do this once or to repeat the process to generate periodic interrupts. The scheduler uses this mechanism to generate an interrupt that will preempt a process at the end of its time slice.
The disk I/O subsystem uses it to invoke the periodic flushing of dirty cache buffers to disk, and the network subsystem uses it to cancel operations that are proceeding too slowly because of network congestion or failures. The operating system may also provide an interface for user processes to use timers.
The operating system can support more timer requests than the number of timer hardware channels by simulating virtual clocks. To do so, the kernel (or the timer device driver) maintains a list of interrupts wanted by its own routines and by user requests, sorted in earliest-time-first order. It sets the timer for the earliest time. When the timer interrupts, the kernel signals the requester and reloads the timer with the next earliest time.
On many computers, the interrupt rate generated by the hardware clock is between 18 and 60 ticks per second. This resolution is coarse, since a modern computer can execute hundreds of millions of instructions per second. The precision of triggers is limited by the coarse resolution of the timer, together with the overhead of maintaining virtual clocks. Furthermore, if the timer ticks are used to maintain the system time-of-day clock, the system clock can drift.
In most computers, the hardware clock is constructed from a high frequency counter. In some computers, the value of this counter can be read from a device register, in which case the counter can be considered a high resolution clock. Although this clock does not generate interrupts, it offers accurate measurements of time intervals.