Comparison of Propagation Delays of Digital Stopwatches Implemented Using Arduino Development Board, PIC16F877A Microcontroller and Classical Counter

Propagation delay is crucial in digital circuits, representing the time delay when a signal passes from one point to another within a digital device. This delay is determined by the speed of the signal and the characteristic properties of the circuit elements. Chronometers, although they appear similar to simple digital clocks, can perform more precise time measurements. Some chronometers can be manually started and stopped, while others automatically start and stop timing. Chronometers can measure time with precision down to decimal fractions of a second. Nowadays, when designing even a simple digital electronic circuit, the first choices that come to mind are often platforms using microcontrollers like Arduino or PIC16F877. However, these choices are not suitable particularly in terms of propagation delay. In this study, a simple digital chronometer circuit was chosen as an example circuit. Three different chronometer circuits were implemented using both the Arduino development platform and PIC16F877, as well as a classic digital counter integrated circuit. The propagation delays of all three circuits were measured using simulation and real measurement methods. The measurements revealed that the best results were obtained when using classic digital counter integrated circuits. It was observed that when classic counter integrated circuits were used, the propagation delay, and consequently the performance, was significantly better.