The 80C186XL and 80C188XL incorporate a special control unit that integrates address and clock counters which, along with the Bus Interface Unit (BIU), facilitates dynamic memory refreshing. Refreshing is an operation required by dynamic memory to ensure data retention. Dynamic memory refreshing can be controlled using anything from an exotic memory controller to a simple timer along with a DMA controller. In fact, the 80186 device accomplishes the task memory refreshing by using one of the internal timer/counters and a DMA channel.
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