The ATMEGA2561-16AU is a high-performance, low-power 8-bit AVR RISC-based Microcontroller combines 256kB ISP flash memory, 8kB SRAM, 4kB EEPROM, 86 general purpose I/O lines, 32 general purpose working registers, real time counter, six flexible timers/counters with compare modes, PWM, 4 USARTs, byte oriented 2-wire serial interface, 8-channel 10-bit A/D converter and a JTAG interface for on-chip debugging. The device achieves a throughput of 16MIPS at 16MHz and operates between 4.5 to 5.5V. By executing powerful instructions in a single clock cycle, the device achieves a throughput approaching 1MIPS per MHz, balancing power consumption and processing speed. The device is manufactured using Atmel's high density nonvolatile memory technology. The on-chip ISP flash allows the program memory to be reprogrammed in-system through an SPI serial interface, by a conventional nonvolatile memory programmer, or by an on-chip boot program running on the AVR core.