Atmel’s SAM7S is a series of low pincount Flash microcontrollers based on the 32-bit ARM RISC processor. It features a high-speed Flash and an SRAM, a large set of peripherals, including a USB 2.0 device (except for the SAM7S32 and SAM7S16), and a complete set of system functions minimizing the number of external components. The device is an ideal migration path for 8-bit microcontroller users looking for additional performance and extended memory.

The Atmel® | SMART ARM®-based SAM7S256 is a member of the SAM7S series of flash microcontrollers based on the 32-bit ARM7TDMI® RISC processor. It operates at a maximum speed of 55MHz and features 128KB of flash memory and 64KB of SRAM. The peripheral set includes a Full Speed USB device and Phy at 12Mbps, UART, two USARTs, TWI (I2C), SPI, SSC, two PWM timers, three 16-bit timers, RTT, 8x10-bit ADC and 32 IO lines. It achieves single-cycle instruction access from embedded flash at 27 MIPS. The multi-layer bus matrix, multiple SRAM banks, PDC, and DMA support parallel tasks and maximize data throughput. The SAM7S256 operates from 1.65V to 3.6V and is available in 64-pin LQFP and QFN packages.

Official Site : http://www.atmel.com/devices/SAM7S256.aspx