50 MHz Cortex-M3 with 128 KB flash and 32 KB SRAM
The LM3S1601-IBZ50-A2T: The 128 KB on-chip flash and 32 KB SRAM provide enough headroom for a moderate control application — a motor drive with a fieldbus stack, for example — without external memory. The 60 GPIOs, combined with I²C, SPI, SSI, UART, and IrDA connectivity, make it suitable for sensor aggregation and actuator control in a distributed automation node.
NRND — plan for a migration path
Texas Instruments has designated this part as NRND (Not Recommended for New Designs).
Peripheral set and board integration
On-chip brown-out detect, POR, PWM, and a watchdog timer reduce the external BOM count — a clean two-layer board with a 3.3 V regulator and a decoupling cap array is enough to bring the core up. For timing-critical interfaces like UART at higher baud rates, an external source is still advisable.