The 8255 is a programmable peripheral interface chip used for interfacing I/O devices with microprocessor systems, supporting parallel data transfer. It has 24 programmable I/O pins organized into three 8-bit ports and can operate in three modes: simple I/O, handshake I/O, and bidirectional I/O. Control words are used to set up the device's operation modes and to manage the data flow between the microprocessor and peripherals.