17.1 Overview

The Deadman Timer (DMT) module is designed to enable users to be able to monitor the health of their application software by requiring periodic timer interrupts within a user-specified timing window. The DMT module is a synchronous counter and when enabled, counts instruction fetches and causes a system reset if the DMT counter is not cleared within a set number of instructions. The DMT is typically connected to the system clock that drives the processor. The user specifies the timer time-out value and a mask value that specifies the range of the window, which is the range of counts that is not considered for the comparison event.