High School

What is the lowest frequency that can be generated using Timer1 if the crystal frequency is 16 MHz?

Show your calculation.

Answer :

Final answer:

The lowest frequency that can be generated using a 16-bit Timer1 with a 16 MHz crystal frequency and a maximum prescaler of 256 is approximately 0.9537 Hz, calculated by taking the inverse of the period, which in turn is determined by the timer's count and prescaler value.

Explanation:

To calculate the lowest frequency that can be generated using Timer1 with a crystal frequency of 16 MHz, we use the relationship between period (T) and frequency (f), where f = 1/T. The period is the inverse of the frequency, and the frequency is the number of cycles per second. For a microcontroller timer with a crystal frequency of 16 MHz, the longest period (and thus the lowest frequency) is determined by the timer's maximum count and the prescaler value.

Assuming that Timer1 is a 16-bit timer, it can count up to 65,536 (2^16) cycles before overflowing. If there's no prescaler, each cycle takes 1/16,000,000 seconds (the inverse of the crystal frequency). In the case of the maximum prescale value, let's say the prescaler is 256, each timer increment would effectively take 256/16,000,000 seconds. Therefore, the period for the timer to overflow would be 65,536 times longer, resulting in a period T given by: