AT91SAM7S microcontroller and eval board

Recently I came across the AT91SAM7S microcontroller from Atmel (Wikipedia article). It's a very cool gadget and is affordably available at Digikey. Here is Atmel's ad copy:

The AT91SAM7SE512 is a Flash microcontroller with external memory bus based on the 32-bit ARM7TDMI RISC processor. It features 512K bytes of embedded high-speed Flash with sector lock capabilities and a security bit, and 32K bytes of SRAM. The integrated proprietary SAM-BA Boot Assistant enables in-system programming of the embedded Flash. The external bus interface supports SDRAM and static memories including CompactFlash and ECC-enabled NAND Flash.

Its extensive peripheral set includes a USB 2.0 Full Speed Device Port, USARTs, SPI, SSC, TWI and an 8-channel 10-bit ADC. Its Peripheral DMA Controller channels eliminate processor bottlenecks during peripheral-to-memory transfers. Its System Controller manages interrupts, clocks, power, time, debug and reset, significantly reducing the external chip count and minimizing power consumption.

In industrial temperature worst-case conditions, the maximum clock frequency is 48MHz. Typical core supply is 1.8V, I/Os are supplied at 1.8V or 3.3V. An integrated voltage regulator permits single supply at 3.3V. The AT91SAM7SE512 is supplied in a 128-lead LQFP Green Package, or a 144-ball LFBGA Green Package. It is supported by an Evaluation Board and extensive application development tools.

The AT91SAM7SE512 is a general-purpose microcontroller, particularly suited to applications requiring high performance, USB connectivity and extended on- and off-chip memory.

So that's already pretty cool, but even better, there is a great little evaluation board which is also available at Digikey. Software resources abound.

• eCos and RedBoot, embedded firmware from Red Hat, the Linux folks
  
• Numerous source code examples
  
• Scheme interpreter
  
• FreeRTOS port
  
• Linux running on the SAM architecture
  
• An online user community for the AT91 family of microcontrollers
  
• Sam-I-Am is software for interacting with an Atmel AT91SAM7S microcontroller running the SAM-BA monitor program, designed for Linux users who want to connect to their device using the USB port.