Several types of mil/aero and industrial equipment must survive in extremely harsh environments, and must have the ability to notify the user of impending warranty expiration or preventative maintenance scheduling. The operating environment for this equipment is generally not conducive to designs that require crystals or batteries. Depending upon the application, the tracking device can measure and alarm based on total system run time, power-on/off cycles, or the count of some other event in the system. In almost all cases, there is a requirement for this count data to be non-volatile, and thus maintained in the absence of system power.