2.9.1.2 - PWM Output (8-Bit, Mode 1)

Outputs a pulse width modulated rectangular wave output. Value passed should be 0-65535, and determines what portion of the total time is spent low (out of 65536 total increments). The lower byte is actually ignored since this is 8-bit PWM. That means the duty cycle can be varied from 100% (0 out of 65536 are low) to 0.4% (65280 out of 65536 are low).

The overall frequency of the PWM output is the clock frequency specified by TimerClockBase/TimerClockDivisor divided by 2⁸. The following table shows the range of available PWM frequencies based on timer clock settings.

Note that the clocks above apply to the U3 hardware revision 1.21. With hardware revision 1.20 all clocks are half of those values.

The same clock applies to all timers, so all 8-bit PWM channels will have the same frequency and will have their falling edges at the same time.

PWM output starts by setting the digital line to output-low for the specified amount of time. The output does not necessarily start instantly, but rather waits for the internal clock to roll. For example, if the PWM frequency is 100 Hz, that means the period is 10 milliseconds, and thus after the command is received by the device it could be anywhere from 0 to 10 milliseconds before the start of the PWM output.

If a duty cycle of 0.0% (totally off) is required, consider using a simple inverter IC such as the CD74ACT540E from TI.