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Micro-controllers are computer chips made up of a large number of transistors all piled on top of one another. They’re at the heart of nearly every programmable digital clock made since the advent of modern circuit design. Basic programmable clocks use one to keep track of the number of seconds that pass starting with some arbitrary epoch mark. This generally takes the form of the moment the clock gets set by an end user.
Power supply enumeration is another example of just how vital semiconductors are to the functioning of modern programmable clocks. Quartz crystals vibrate at a certain set frequency. By passing electricity through a small sliver of crystal, these clocks can keep very accurate time while still paying close attention to any alarm settings programmed into them by way of a micro-controller chip. A set of transistors regulates and switches the flow of power going into the crystal.
A special microchip is also used to convert time data into a standard format that people can actually understand. Clock circuits vibrate more than 32,000 times every second, which is far too fast for people to keep track of. Digital circuitry powered by semiconductor logic translates these vibration patterns into actual time counts.
Vehicle and telecommunications industry representatives rely on purpose-made semiconductor packages that are geared toward applications in their specific industries. Keeping time in either of these market segments is extremely vital. It’s possible to figure out the position of a data packet or even physical assets if you know the current time as well as the time something left a specific node. Accurate transistor-based clocks offer technicians an excellent approximation of the current time anywhere on Earth.
Computer chips have gotten so sophisticated that it’s possible to emulate the functionality of a programmable clock entirely in source code. Such a clock would offer users all of the features they’d expect from a boxed solution. Without the underlying semiconductors that power the physical hardware they run it on, this kind of software wouldn’t be able to do anything besides offer users a guess. Clock boards on personal computers actually used to ask typists to manually enter the time for precisely this reason.
Programs take a look at the current state of an onboard clock chip whenever they want to know what time it is. They then report this back to the subroutine that called them. Web browsers and communications packages do this constantly because they have to know whether or not certain security documents are outdated.
Network time is provided using a similar system. Atomic clocks monitor the passage of certain particles using a series of lasers and semiconductor modules. They then report this as the current time of day. Long-distance carriers and broadcasters then inject this value into their own networks so that every node knows exactly what time it is. The programmable clocks offered on cellular phone screens are reporting the time using the information provided to them by their wireless connection.
Even the screen they report the time on is based on diodes, meaning that clock displays are nothing more than collections of highly specialized semiconductors.
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