Timing requirements can be in response to the need for either high system throughput or fast response time. Applications requiring high throughput may process large amounts of data and use a continuous stream of data points equally spaced in time. For example, electrocardiogram research uses a continuous stream of data for qualitative and quantitative analysis. Applications requiring a fast response to asynchronous external events must capture data as it comes in and perform decision-making operations or generate new output data within a given time frame. For example, flight simulator applications may acquire several hundred input parameters from the cockpit controls and visual display subsystem with calculations to be completed within a 5 millisecond time frame.
Applications can create multiple timers for each process.
The correctness of realtime applications often depends on satisfying timing constraints. A systemwide clock is the primary source for synchronization and high-resolution timers to support realtime requirements for scheduling events. If all processes could read the clock at the same time, each process would see the same value. 1024 Hz, the result is 976562.5 nanoseconds. The fractional nanoseconds are ignored.