The innovative Event System allows peripherals to work and communicate without involving the CPU or DMA Controller. It enables the possibility for a change of state in one peripheral to automatically trigger actions in other peripherals. The benefit of this is 100% predictable and latency-free inter-peripheral signal communication with reduced need for CPU time and interrupt resources for these tasks. It is extremely powerful as it allows for autonomous and predictable control of peripherals. This also saves power, since XMEGA can spend more time in sleep mode while the Event System continues to operate and the CPU is turned off. With eight parallel channels, up to eight events can occur and be routed at the same time. For example, a timer/counter can be used to trigger the DAC for 100% accurate waveform generation, a pin change can start an ADC conversion when an external event occurs, or the analog comparator can be used to switch off the PWM output from a timer in less than 68 ns, ensuring safe fault protection in over-current situations. All this can be done without using a single CPU cycle, and with 100% accurate timing regardless of what else is running in a XMEGA device.