11/18
M48T35, M 48T35Y
Two methods are available for ascertaining how
much calibration a given M48T35/35Y may re-
quire. The first involves simply setting the clock,
letting it run for a month and comparing it to a
known accurate reference (like WWV broadcasts).
While that may seem crude, it al lows the designer
to give the end user the ability to calibrate his clock
as his environm ent may require, even after the fi-
nal product is packaged in a non-user serviceable
enclosure.
All the designer has to do is provide a simple utility
that accesses the Calibration byte.
The second approach is better suited to a manu-
facturing environment, and involves the use of
some test equipment. When the Frequency Test
(FT) bit, the sevent h-most s ignificant bit in the Day
Register is set to a ’1’ , and D7 of the Seconds Reg-
ister is a ’0’ (Os cillator Running), DQ0 will toggle at
512Hz during a read of t he Sec onds Register. Any
deviation from 512 Hz indicates the degree and di-
rection of oscillator frequency shift at the test tem-
perature. For example, a reading of 512.01024 Hz
would indicate a +20 pp m oscillator frequen cy er-
ror, requiring a –10 (WR001010) to be l oaded into
the Calibration Byte for correction. Note that set-
ting or chang ing the Calibration Byte does not af-
fect the Frequency test output frequency.
The FT bit MUST be reset to '0' for normal clock
operations to resume. T he FT bit is automatically
Reset on power-up.
For more i nformation on cali bration, see the A ppli-
cation Note AN934 "TIMEKEEPER Calibration".
Most clock chips compensate for crystal frequency
and temperat ure shift error with cumb erso me trim
capacitors. The M48T35/35Y design, however,
employs pe riodic counter correction. The calibra-
tion circuit adds or subtrac ts counts from the oscil -
lator divider circuit at the divide by 256 stage, as
shown in Figure 9. The number of t imes pulses are
blanked (subtracted, negative calibration) or split
(added, positive calibration) depends upon the
value loaded into the five Calibration bits found in
the Control Register. Adding counts speeds the
clock up, subtracting counts slows the clock down.
The Calibration byte occupies the five lower order
bits (D4-D0) in the Control Register 7FF8h. These
bits can be set to represent any value between 0
and 31 in binary f orm . Bit D5 is a Sign bit; '1' indi-
cates positive calibration, '0' indicates negative
calibration. Calibration occurs within a 64 minute
cycle. The first 62 minutes i n t he cycle may , onc e
per minute, h ave one second either shortened by
128 or lengthened by 256 oscillator cycles. If a bi-
nary '1' is loaded into the register, only the first 2
minute s in the 64 minute cycle will be modified; if
a binary 6 is loaded, the first 12 will be affected,
and so on.
Therefore, e ach calibration step ha s the effect of
adding 512 or subtracting 256 osc illator cycles for
every 125,829,120 actual oscillator cycles, that is
+4.068 or –2.034 ppm of adjustment per calibra-
tion step i n t he cal ibrat ion registe r. Ass um ing that
the oscillator is in fact running at exactly 32,768
Hz, each of the 31 increments in the Calibration
byte would represent +10.7 or –5.35 seconds per
month which corres ponds to a total range of +5. 5
or –2.75 minutes per month.
Figure 9. Clock Calibration
AI00594B
NORMAL
POSITIVE
CALIBRATION
NEGATIVE
CALIBRATION