9 years, 4 months ago.

Where is the documentation?

This page is seriously under-documented. It doesn't answer any of these questions:

1. How is this implemented? Does it use a hardware RTC or the microsecond ticker?

2. Does it use the hardware RTC but fall back to the microsecond ticker if it's not present?

3. Which boards have a hardware RTC?

4. Which boards have backup batteries for the RTC? I.e. is the time preserved across boots?

5. What if I just want the number of milliseconds since boot? (i.e. I don't care about the date)

I looked at the code myself and found the following answers:

1. It uses the RTC. clock() uses the microsecond ticker.

2. No, if there is no on-board RTC it just returns 0. However you can add an external RTC using the attach_rtc() function.

3. See below.

4. No idea.

5. Use the clock() function. It returns the number of microseconds since boot in an unsigned long (64 bit).

List of boards with RTC, as of 2/7/2015: (search for "#define DEVICE_RTC 1").

TARGET_Freescale\TARGET_K20XX\TARGET_K20D50M
TARGET_Freescale\TARGET_K20XX\TARGET_TEENSY3_1
TARGET_Freescale\TARGET_KLXX\TARGET_KL05Z
TARGET_Freescale\TARGET_KLXX\TARGET_KL25Z
TARGET_Freescale\TARGET_KLXX\TARGET_KL43Z
TARGET_Freescale\TARGET_KLXX\TARGET_KL46Z
TARGET_Freescale\TARGET_KPSDK_MCUS\TARGET_K22F
TARGET_Freescale\TARGET_KPSDK_MCUS\TARGET_MCU_K64F\TARGET_FRDM
TARGET_Freescale\TARGET_KPSDK_MCUS\TARGET_MCU_K64F\TARGET_MTS_GAMBIT
TARGET_NXP\TARGET_LPC11U6X
TARGET_NXP\TARGET_LPC15XX
TARGET_NXP\TARGET_LPC176X\TARGET_ARCH_PRO
TARGET_NXP\TARGET_LPC176X\TARGET_MBED_LPC1768
TARGET_NXP\TARGET_LPC176X\TARGET_UBLOX_C027
TARGET_NXP\TARGET_LPC23XX
TARGET_NXP\TARGET_LPC408X
TARGET_NXP\TARGET_LPC43XX\TARGET_LPC4330
TARGET_NXP\TARGET_LPC43XX\TARGET_LPC4337
TARGET_RENESAS\TARGET_RZ_A1H
TARGET_STM\TARGET_DISCO_F100RB
TARGET_STM\TARGET_DISCO_F303VC
TARGET_STM\TARGET_DISCO_F334C8
TARGET_STM\TARGET_NUCLEO_F103RB
TARGET_STM\TARGET_NUCLEO_F302R8
TARGET_STM\TARGET_NUCLEO_F303RE
TARGET_STM\TARGET_NUCLEO_F334R8
TARGET_STM\TARGET_STM32F0\TARGET_DISCO_F051R8
TARGET_STM\TARGET_STM32F0\TARGET_NUCLEO_F030R8
TARGET_STM\TARGET_STM32F0\TARGET_NUCLEO_F070RB
TARGET_STM\TARGET_STM32F0\TARGET_NUCLEO_F072RB
TARGET_STM\TARGET_STM32F0\TARGET_NUCLEO_F091RC
TARGET_STM\TARGET_STM32F3XX
TARGET_STM\TARGET_STM32F4\TARGET_ARCH_MAX
TARGET_STM\TARGET_STM32F4\TARGET_DISCO_F401VC
TARGET_STM\TARGET_STM32F4\TARGET_DISCO_F407VG
TARGET_STM\TARGET_STM32F4\TARGET_DISCO_F429ZI
TARGET_STM\TARGET_STM32F4\TARGET_MTS_DRAGONFLY_F411RE
TARGET_STM\TARGET_STM32F4\TARGET_MTS_MDOT_F405RG
TARGET_STM\TARGET_STM32F4\TARGET_MTS_MDOT_F411RE
TARGET_STM\TARGET_STM32F4\TARGET_NUCLEO_F401RE
TARGET_STM\TARGET_STM32F4\TARGET_NUCLEO_F411RE
TARGET_STM\TARGET_STM32L0\TARGET_DISCO_L053C8
TARGET_STM\TARGET_STM32L0\TARGET_NUCLEO_L053R8
TARGET_STM\TARGET_STM32L0\TARGET_NUCLEO_L073RZ
TARGET_STM\TARGET_STM32L1\TARGET_NUCLEO_L152RE

Question relating to:

2 Answers

9 years, 1 month ago.

Concerning Number 4. The mBed platforms are open- source, so you should look at the schematic of the particular platform you are using. Most platforms like mBed, Arduino, etc aren't going to have a battery pre- installed. Just hook up a coin cell battery to preserve the memory while the mBed is off if you are building a RTC application.

Also if you need to know what hardware your ARM chip includes look at its Datasheet, i.e. the mbed LPC 1768 is based on the LPC1768, a quick google search will pull up the datasheet for the ARM LPC1768 which will outline all the hardware peripherals.

Each of the mBed platforms has an overview page including schematics, datasheets, and must things you need. Click on "Platforms" and select your device...

https://developer.mbed.org/platforms/

Cheers

Same question from me: where is the documentation? Thanks, gennaro

posted by Gennaro De Biase 13 Nov 2015
posted by Bryce Williams 13 Nov 2015
8 years, 12 months ago.

I have found a documentation of a earlier version here: https://developer.mbed.org/handbook/Time?action=view&revision=11592