A high-precision timing and interrupt controller to support distributed real-time operating systems

A new approach for timers is presented. They are to serve in distributed real-time systems to achieve precise time information, accurate time stamping of interrupt occurrences, and comfortable time handling. No clock synchronisation by software is needed, since the exact UTC is received via satellite from GPS, the global navigation and positioning system. A hardware realisation is described making use of an application specific integrated circuit. It is shown that the presented solution is economically feasible.