Patent ID: 7917738

Claim:
A method of monitoring the operation of a microcontroller unit that is intended for at least one application and is associated with a system, by means of a base chip, particularly a system base chip, characterized in that: causing a reset of the microcontroller unit if a reset condition is detected, wherein the reset condition is transmission of at least one special sequence, particularly at least one drive or access sequence assigned to the reset operation, to the base chip and the reset of the microcontroller unit is confirmed under an enquiry routine by checking whether the at least one special sequence has been successfully transmitted to the base chip; activating a special mode of operation, particularly a flash mode of the base chip, once after the check has been made to see whether the special sequence has been successfully applied and after the reset operation, by allowing access a monitoring module that is associated with the base chip to take place in a manner which is simplified in comparison with the normal mode of operation of the microcontroller unit; supplying a permanent energy supply from a battery unit to the monitoring module; and switching a microcontroller supply unit of the base chip to enable or disable a temporary energy supply from the battery unit to the microcontroller unit.