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The Watchdog Timer
The hardware that resets a hung MCU: a countdown timer firmware must periodically kick, why you kick only from healthy code, and the window-watchdog twist.
18 min read
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What is a watchdog timer and what problem does it solve?Where in your code should you kick the watchdog, and what's the common mistake?What's the difference between an independent watchdog and a window watchdog?How do you choose the watchdog timeout, and what goes wrong at the extremes?Why does your chip keep resetting when you pause at a breakpoint, and how do you handle long legitimate operations?
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