No last-time-buy window remains open through the factory.
The 25 MHz Cortex-M3 core delivers adequate throughput for UART polling, sensor readout, and PWM generation at moderate update rates. It will not sustain real-time audio processing or high-speed data logging — the 4 KB RAM and 16 KB Flash are the actual constraints. For a control loop with a few hundred lines of C and a handful of state variables, this part fits without over-spending on a larger Stellaris sibling.
The 36 I/O lines are on the perimeter leads.
