intimer

Intimer is a term used in computing to denote an internal timer—a timer mechanism that operates within a component, process, or hardware module to measure elapsed time and trigger actions. The term may appear in documentation for embedded systems, real-time operating systems, and software libraries.

In hardware contexts, an intimer is a timer peripheral with a counter register and one or more compare or overflow events. The device can generate an interrupt when a counter reaches a set value, enabling precise scheduling of tasks. In software contexts, an intimer is typically a timer object or API that relies on a monotonic clock to avoid backward time jumps; it can be created with a delay or period and can invoke a callback or set a flag.

Intimers are usually categorized as one-shot (single expiration) or periodic. They may offer various modes, such as high-resolution timing, low-power wakeups, or tied to a hardware clock. Key considerations include resolution, latency, jitter, wraparound handling, and thread safety in multi-threaded environments.

Common applications include timeouts for I/O operations, frame or audio sampling in multimedia, scheduling in event-driven programs, and control loops in embedded devices. In operating systems and standards, similar concepts appear as timers, timer queues, or alarm facilities; POSIX timers and Windows multimedia timers provide portable interfaces with comparable behavior.

See also: timer, real-time clock, timer interrupt, scheduler.

References: standard timer documentation in the relevant platform manuals.