Shortest measurable time

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) General Frequently-Asked Questions
1

Hi all

I know that the ATMega chips runs at 20MHz but the language seems to only include times in milliseconds. Is it possible to measure smaller time segments?

Cheers

Mark

2

Depends on what you mean by "measure". There's the [

delayMicroseconds()

](http://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/DelayMicroseconds) function and the [

pulseIn()

](http://arduino.cc/en/Reference/PulseIn) function, both of which have microsecond resolution.

NOPs are 1 cycle long, for 62.5ns resolution on the 16MHz models.

-j

3

Thanks J - microsecond resolution is what I'm after.

Obviously should have checked the docs a bit more thoroughly :slight_smile:

4

Just to clarify, the ATmega chip is capable of a 20MHz clock but the Arduino platform includes a 16MHz or 8MHz crystal. (The minis that run at 3.3V use a slower clock.)