Do AVR delay functions (_delay_us() and _delay_ms()) use timers?

Question

I'm trying to determine if the AVR delay functions _delay_us() and _delay_ms() use timers in such a way that I can't use those timers for other functionality in my code. If so, what timer does it use?

For reference I'm using an Arduino Uno with ATmega328, but I imagine if it's an AVR function it must work similarly on other devices.

Answer 1

No, these macros expand to calls to __builtin_avr_delay_cycles(), which are compiled into delay loops. It should be noted that:

• the arguments to these macros should be compile-time constants, they can be floating point
• the macros are cycle-accurate, e.g. _delay_us(0.125) will take exactly two CPU cycles on an Uno
• whereas the CPU time used by the call is exactly what you ask for, the physical time will be larger if the call gets interrupted.

Answer 2

No.

The long answer is that you can delay via timers, a little bit more painfully within the Arduino framework, or much more efficiently if you are willing to move outside of the arduino framework.

I wrote a set of systick clones for many of the popular 8bit mcus precisely for that.