LATENCY COUNTER FOR SCANNING TIMERS

A latency counter for use in relatively complex systems having relatively large numbers of devices with associated timers. Whenever a timer is activated by setting a time period, the latency counter is set to the larger of its current value or a value associated with the time period of the last-expiring timer. Prior to scanning the timers to determine if a timer has expired, the latency counter is checked. If the value of the latency counter is equal to a predetermined value, then no timers are active and no scanning is performed. If the value of the latency counter is not equal to the predetermined value, the latency counter value is modified and a scanning operation of each timer is perfomed to determine if any timers have expired. Considerable processing resources can be saved.