Floating-event counter with automatic prescaling

The occurrence of a specific event in an electronic unit is counted by an event counter is incremented every time a variable number of the respective events has occurred, and in which said variable number is increased when the total count increases. The variable number (Vorteilungswert) may increase geometrically according to a programmable counter base every time the Zahlermantisse overflows. The event counter thus provides a realized by means of hardware automatic prescaling ready while reducing the number of Schnittstellenbits required to support very large Zahlwertbereiche, and maintains high accuracy with very large Ereigniszahlwerten at.