LM3S8970 is not recommended for new designs
Although this product continues to be in production to support previous designs, we don't recommend it for new designs. Consider one of these alternates:
open-in-new Compare alternates
Similar functionality to the compared device
TM4C123GH6PM ACTIVE 32-bit Arm Cortex-M4F based MCU with 80 -MHz, 256 -KB Flash, 32 -KB RAM, 2 CAN, RTC, USB, 64-Pin The product is an ARM® Cortex™-M4 with comparable peripherals and higher performance.
TM4C1294NCPDT ACTIVE 32-bit Arm Cortex-M4F based MCU with 120-MHZ, 1-MB flash, 256-KB RAM, USB, ENET MAC+PHY The product is an ARM® Cortex™-M4 with broader peripherals and higher performance.

Product details

Flash memory (kByte) 256 Number of GPIOs 38 UART 2 Number of I2Cs 1 Operating temperature range (°C) -40 to 85 PWM (Ch) 0 CAN (#) 3 Rating Catalog
Flash memory (kByte) 256 Number of GPIOs 38 UART 2 Number of I2Cs 1 Operating temperature range (°C) -40 to 85 PWM (Ch) 0 CAN (#) 3 Rating Catalog
LQFP (PZ) 100 256 mm² 16 x 16
  • 32-bit ARM® Cortex™-M3 50-MHz processor core with System Timer (SysTick), integrated Nested Vectored Interrupt Controller (NVIC), Memory Protection Unit (MPU), and Thumb-2 instruction set

  • Full-featured debug solution with debug access via JTAG and Serial Wire interfaces, and IEEE 1149.1-1990 compliant Test Access Port (TAP) controller

  • 256 KB single-cycle flash and 64 KB single-cycle SRAM

  • Lower-power battery-backed Hibernation module with Real-Time Clock

  • 17-46 GPIOs (depending on configuration) with programmable control for GPIO interrupts and pad configuration

  • ARM FiRM-compliant Watchdog Timer ; plus four General-Purpose Timer Modules (GPTM), each of which provides two 16-bit timers/counters and can be configured to operate independently

  • 10-bit Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) with analog input channels and a sample rate of samples/second

  • Two fully programmable 16C550-type UARTs with IrDA support

  • Two Synchronous Serial Interface (SSI) modules, supporting operation for Freescale SPI, MICROWIRE, or Texas Instruments synchronous serial interfaces

  • Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C) Interface, providing Standard (100 Kbps) and Fast (400 Kbps) transmission and support for sending and receiving data as either a master or a slave

  • Three Controller Area Network (CAN) Interface modules using CAN protocol version 2.0 part A/B and with bit rates up to 1 Mbps

  • Highly configurable 10/100 Ethernet Controller that conforms to the IEEE 802.3-2002 specification with full- and half-duplex modes for both 100 Mbps and 10 Mbps operation, IEEE 1588 PTP hardware support, and automatic MDI/MDI-X cross-over correction

  • Industrial and extended temperature RoHS-compliant 100-pin LQFP package and industrial-range RoHS-compliant 108-ball BGA package

  • 32-bit ARM® Cortex™-M3 50-MHz processor core with System Timer (SysTick), integrated Nested Vectored Interrupt Controller (NVIC), Memory Protection Unit (MPU), and Thumb-2 instruction set

  • Full-featured debug solution with debug access via JTAG and Serial Wire interfaces, and IEEE 1149.1-1990 compliant Test Access Port (TAP) controller

  • 256 KB single-cycle flash and 64 KB single-cycle SRAM

  • Lower-power battery-backed Hibernation module with Real-Time Clock

  • 17-46 GPIOs (depending on configuration) with programmable control for GPIO interrupts and pad configuration

  • ARM FiRM-compliant Watchdog Timer ; plus four General-Purpose Timer Modules (GPTM), each of which provides two 16-bit timers/counters and can be configured to operate independently

  • 10-bit Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) with analog input channels and a sample rate of samples/second

  • Two fully programmable 16C550-type UARTs with IrDA support

  • Two Synchronous Serial Interface (SSI) modules, supporting operation for Freescale SPI, MICROWIRE, or Texas Instruments synchronous serial interfaces

  • Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C) Interface, providing Standard (100 Kbps) and Fast (400 Kbps) transmission and support for sending and receiving data as either a master or a slave

  • Three Controller Area Network (CAN) Interface modules using CAN protocol version 2.0 part A/B and with bit rates up to 1 Mbps

  • Highly configurable 10/100 Ethernet Controller that conforms to the IEEE 802.3-2002 specification with full- and half-duplex modes for both 100 Mbps and 10 Mbps operation, IEEE 1588 PTP hardware support, and automatic MDI/MDI-X cross-over correction

  • Industrial and extended temperature RoHS-compliant 100-pin LQFP package and industrial-range RoHS-compliant 108-ball BGA package

The Stellaris® LM3S8970 microcontroller is based on the ARM® Cortex™-M3 controller core operating at up to 50 MHz, with 256 kB flash and 64 kB SRAM. The LM3S8970 also features real-time industrial connectivity, with a 10/100 Ethernet MAC/PHY, 3 CAN controllers, 2 SSI / SPI controllers, an I2C interface, and 2 UARTs, as well as hardware-assisted support for synchronized industrial networks utilizing the IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP). Finally, the LM3S8970 microcontroller provides a 24-bit systick timer, 4 32-bit or 8 16-bit general-purpose timers, a watchdog timer, a battery-backed hibernation module with RTC and 256 bytes of non-volatile state-saving memory, a low drop-out voltage regulator so that only one supply voltage is required, brown-out reset, power-on reset controller, and up to 46 GPIOs.

The Stellaris® LM3S8970 microcontroller is based on the ARM® Cortex™-M3 controller core operating at up to 50 MHz, with 256 kB flash and 64 kB SRAM. The LM3S8970 also features real-time industrial connectivity, with a 10/100 Ethernet MAC/PHY, 3 CAN controllers, 2 SSI / SPI controllers, an I2C interface, and 2 UARTs, as well as hardware-assisted support for synchronized industrial networks utilizing the IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP). Finally, the LM3S8970 microcontroller provides a 24-bit systick timer, 4 32-bit or 8 16-bit general-purpose timers, a watchdog timer, a battery-backed hibernation module with RTC and 256 bytes of non-volatile state-saving memory, a low drop-out voltage regulator so that only one supply voltage is required, brown-out reset, power-on reset controller, and up to 46 GPIOs.

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Technical documentation

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Type Title Date
* Data sheet Stellaris LM3S8970 Microcontroller Data Sheet datasheet (Rev. I) 16 Jul 2014
* Errata Stellaris LM3S Sandstorm-, Fury-, and DustDevil-Class Microcontrollers Errata 26 Jun 2014
User guide SYS/BIOS (TI-RTOS Kernel) User's Guide (Rev. V) 01 Jun 2020
User guide TI-RTOS 2.20 User's Guide (Rev. M) 17 Jun 2016
User guide TI-RTOS 2.16 User's Guide (Rev. L) 22 Feb 2016
Application note Differences Among Stellaris® LM3S and Tiva™ C Series TM4C123x MCUs (Rev. E) 24 Sep 2013
User guide Stellaris Boot Loader User's Guide (SW-BOOTLDR-UG) (Rev. P) 19 Apr 2013
User guide Stellaris Graphics Library User's Guide (SW-GRL-UG) (Rev. P) 19 Apr 2013
User guide Stellaris Peripheral Driver Library User's Guide (SW-DRL-UG) (Rev. P) 19 Apr 2013
User guide StellarisWare Release Notes (SW-RLN) (Rev. Q) 19 Apr 2013
Application note System Design Guidelines for Stellaris® Microcontrollers   (Rev. B) 04 Feb 2013
Application note Using the Stellaris Ethernet Controller with Lightweight IP (lwIP) (AN01261) (Rev. C) 08 Sep 2012
Application note Using Execute, Write/Erase Flash Protection on Stellaris MCUs Using CCS (Rev. A) 15 Aug 2012
User guide StellarisWare Release Notes (SW-RLN) (Rev. N) 11 Dec 2011
User guide Cortex-M3/M4F Instruction Set Technical User's Manual (Rev. A) 23 Nov 2011
White paper Serial Wire Debug—Ideal for Microcontrollers 09 Sep 2010
Application note Using the Stellaris Ethernet Controller with Micro IP (uIP) (AN01260) (Rev. B) 11 Jan 2010
More literature Stellaris Product Change Notice (PCN), Sept 2009 07 Sep 2009
Application note Implementing RS-232 Flow Control on a Stellaris Microcontroller (AN01255) 07 Jul 2009
Application note Migrating from Sandstorm-Class to Fury-Class Stellaris Microcontrollers 07 Jul 2009
Application note Optimizing Code Performance and Size for Stellaris Microcontrollers (AN01265) 07 Jul 2009
Application note Programming the On-Chip Flash Memory in a Stellaris Microcontroller (AN01237) 07 Jul 2009
Application note Serial-to-Ethernet Converter for Stellaris Microcontrollers (AN01266) 07 Jul 2009
Application note Software UART for Stellaris Microcontrollers (AN01270) 07 Jul 2009
Application note Using Stellaris MCUs Internal Flash Memory to Emulate EEPROM (AN01267) 07 Jul 2009
Application note Using a 9-bit Software UART with Stellaris (AN01280) 07 Jul 2009
Application note Using the Stellaris Serial Flash Loader (AN01242) 07 Jul 2009
More literature LM3S8970 RevA Product Change Notice (PCN), May 2008 13 Nov 2008
More literature ARM Cortex-M3 Errata (r1p1 and r2p0) 12 Nov 2008
User guide Stellaris Peripheral Driver Library User's Guide (Deprecated Version) 29 Sep 2008
More literature LM3S8970 RevA Product Change Notice (PCN), Dec 2007 20 Dec 2007

Design & development

For additional terms or required resources, click any title below to view the detail page where available.

Simulation model

Stellaris LM3S8970 100LQFP BSDL Model (Rev. A)

SPMM124A.ZIP (3 KB) - BSDL Model
Simulation model

Stellaris LM3S8970 100LQFP IBIS Model

SPMM459.ZIP (749 KB) - IBIS Model
Simulation model

Stellaris LM3S8970 108BGA IBIS Model

SPMM458.ZIP (754 KB) - IBIS Model
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LQFP (PZ) 100 View options

Ordering & quality

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