What is the Watchdog Timer?
Software stability is a major issue on any platform. Anyone who uses software has probably experienced problems that crash the computer or program in question. This is also true of embedded programs, and in most cases there is no user around to reset the computer when things go wrong. That job is occupied by the watchdog timer. The watchdog timer is a 16 bit counter that resets the processor when it rolls over to zero. The processor can reset the counter or turn it off, but, correctly used, it will reset the processor in case of a code crash. To avoid getting reset, the program must reset the timer every so often. A program which has crashed will not do so, and the system will reset. To improve its efficacy, the watchdog timer register also requires a password. In order to change the lower part of the watchdog control register, the upper part of the register must be written with a specific value. This value is specified by the alias WDTPW in the MSP header files. This password reduces
