Method for testing the rate of a quartz watch

A time base device for an electronic watch, wherein the time base device is configured to change from a normal operating mode to a test mode, comprising:

• at least one watch module powered by an energy source, wherein the watch module includes:
• at least one electric motor;
• a quartz resonator;
• an inhibition circuit;
• a divider circuit having D divider stages, wherein D is an integer number equal to or greater than 1;
• an electronic circuit, including a register for storing an inhibition value, connected to the quartz resonator, wherein the electronic circuit is provided with a reference oscillator directly connected to the quartz resonator to provide a reference signal to the divider circuit, wherein the divider circuit is controlled by the inhibition circuit to provide a divided frequency timing signal to control the at least one electric motor;
• and
• the electronic circuit further comprising circuitry configured to, while in the test mode:
• output pulses of the timing signal corresponding to a number of base pulses of the reference signal from the reference oscillator in M successive periods of the timing signal, where M is an integer number equal to or greater than 1,
• output pulses of the timing signal, in N successive periods of the timing signal where N is an integer number greater than or equal to 2, wherein (1) first pulses of the timing signal correspond to the number of base pulses of the reference signal concatenated with a number of pulses representing a first subset of bits of the inhibition value, and (2) second pulses of the timing signal correspond to the number of base pulses of the reference signal concatenated with a number of pulses representing a second subset of bits of the inhibition value, wherein the inhibition value is a p-bit multi-bit binary word.