Here is the TI EOL document PCN 20140630000 for the LM3S Tempest/Inferno defective MCU product line. Last shipments were through to end of 2015. We don't how much longer Keysight continued to produce H/W using the MCU. See end of doc but TI pegged the failure rate at 0.3% keeping down the costs of warranty credits Keysight surely received. There are no pin-compatible replacements. Snippet of PCN last page:
July 1, 2014 Re: Acknowledgement and Limited Warranty Letter for Stellaris Tempest and Firestorm LM3S MCU Devices
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen:
Texas Instruments Incorporated (“TI”) has identified potential flash memory corruption risks with respect to the Stellaris Tempest and Firestorm LM3S part numbers listed in PCN 20140630000. You are receiving this Acknowledgement and Limited Warranty Letter (“Letter”) because TI records indicate you have purchased or sampled one or more of the LM3S Products affected. TI has made a decision to End of Life (EOL) these LM3S Products that were acquired from Luminary Micro. The Erratum (SPMZ861) for these LM3S Products is available at [url=http://www.ti.com]www.ti.com[/url].
TI did not undertake this EOL decision lightly. TI has undertaken significant diagnostic efforts and has replicated quality and performance issues, including flash corruption, that our customers have reported. TI has not been able to find any system level or manufacturing workarounds that completely prevent the flash corruption issues. Customer reported worst case fail rates for these LM3S Products, while using the entire flash in the largest 512kB configuration, is 0.3%. These issues may continue to manifest themselves as failures in customer designs over time, to a greater or lesser degree, depending on a customer’s system design, proportion of flash memory used, and storage times following a customer’s programming of the flash. Please see the Erratum for more details.
Importantly, we want to assure you that these reported flash corruption issues in the LM3S Products (which were designed using Luminary Micro methodologies) are not present in TI’s next generation TM4 products, which have been designed and produced in accordance with TI’s standard design and production procedures and methodologies. For the reasons explained herein, notwithstanding any provision to the contrary in any Purchase Order or any other purchasing or acknowledgement document, for shipments after September 1, 2014, TI’s sole and total warranty is a limited warranty. This limited warranty of credit or replacement is capped at .3% of the revenue for LM3S Products shipped after September 1, 2014.
When possible, TI will replace LM3S Products prior to the end of the EOL period based on then existing lead times. After completion of the deliveries at the end of the EOL period, this warranty will be limited to credit only. Except for this limited warranty, TI makes no warranty, express, implied or statutory, including any implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a specific purpose, for these LM3S Products.
TI will not support full customer return analysis and any related corrective actions (8D reporting, cycle time metrics, etc.) for these LM3S Products, because of these known issues and uncertainty on how, or to what extent, these issues will impact actual customer systems. However, TI may, in its sole discretion, perform customer return analysis to verify warranty claims based on flash memory failures.
TI requires this Acknowledgement and Limited Warranty Letter for LM3S Products to be signed by you by September 1, 2014 to continue shipments after September 1, 2014.
If you desire further shipments of these LM3S Products, please have an authorized person sign below to indicate your agreement and acceptance of this Letter, and return a signed copy of this Letter to TI (at the e-mail address below ),or your authorized TI distributor, if you are buying from a distributor. This Letter will become effective upon your signature.
TI will accept cancellations of orders for LM3S Products accepted before July 1, 2014, if those cancellations are made by September 1 2014. Also, TI will accept returns of LM3S Products in customer inventory based on Return Materials Requests received by TI by September 1, 2014, that are undamaged and in original packing.
These LM3S Products should not be used for any safety-critical application in which a failure of the device could result in an injury to persons or property.
FOR CLARITY, PLEASE NOTE THAT ANY ORDERS REMAINING IN PLACE AFTER SEPTEMBER 1, 2014, WILL IMMEDIATELY BECOME NON-CANCELABLE AND NON-RETURNABLE. ANY INVENTORY REMAINING IN PLACE AFTER SEPTEMBER 1, 2014, WILL IMMEDIATELY BECOME NON-RETURNABLE, EXCEPT FOR THE LIMITED WARRANTY ABOVE.
Please do not hesitate to contact your TI representative or your distributor if you have questions.
Very truly yours,
Texas Instruments Incorporated