The LM3S9DN5-IQC80-A2 is a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 MCU from the Stellaris 9000 series, clocked at 80 MHz. It has 512 KB of Flash and 96 KB of RAM, with Ethernet, USB OTG, CAN, and multiple serial interfaces.
80 MHz on a Cortex-M3 provides 80 MIPS of single-cycle throughput. This supports a Modbus TCP stack alongside a PID loop at a few kilohertz.
512 KB Flash and 96 KB RAM — sizing the firmware
512 KB of program Flash is generous for a mid-range MCU — it holds a full TCP/IP stack, a USB device stack, and application code without external memory. The 96 KB SRAM handles packet buffers and runtime data; if your application uses Ethernet jumbo frames or large lookup tables, watch the RAM budget.
