  Context{The high energy emission regions of rotation powered pulsars are
studied using folded light curve (FLCs) and phase resolved spectra (PRS).}
aims{This work uses the NICER observatory to obtain the highest resolution FLC
and PRS of the Crab pulsar at soft X-ray energies.} methods{NICER has
accumulated about 347 ksec of data on the Crab pulsar. The data are processed
using the standard analysis pipeline. Stringent filtering is done for spectral
analysis. The individual detectors are calibrated in terms of long time light
curve (LTLC), raw spectrum and deadtime. The arrival times of the photons are
referred to the solar system's barycenter and the rotation frequency $\nu$ and
its time derivative $\dot \nu$ are used to derive the rotation phase of each
photon.} results{The LTLCs, raw spectra and deadtimes of the individual
detectors are statistically similar; the latter two show no evolution with
epoch; detector deadtime is independent of photon energy. The deadtime for the
Crab pulsar, taking into account the two types of deadtime, is only approx 7%
to 8% larger than that obtained using the cleaned events. Detector 00 behaves
slightly differently from the rest, but can be used for spectral work. The PRS
of the two peaks of the Crab pulsar are obtained at a resolution of better than
1/512 in rotation phase. The FLC very close to the first peak rises slowly and
falls faster. The spectral index of the PRS is almost constant very close to
the first peak.} conclusions{The high resolution FLC and PRS of the {{peaks}}
of the Crab pulsar provide important constraints for the formation of caustics
in the emission zone.}
