Binary counters are functioning as important building blocks in various digital circuits and systems such as frequency dividers, frequency synthesizers, voltage to time converters and digital meters. The word length for any counter depends on the system configuration demanded for specific application. Nevertheless, systems like versatile frequency synthesizers call for sophisticated frequency counters featuring various facilities that are embedded with the counter. Meeting the requirements of such systems and other demands this paper reports the design and development of universal binary counter and register(UCR) that covers most needs. As a case study its application in sonar for programmable replica correlation detection is illustrated.