Original Arduino Leonardo (ATmega 32U4) without Headers

The Arduino Leonardo is a microcontroller board based on the ATmega32u4. It has 20 digital input/output pins (of which 7 can be used as PWM outputs and 12 as analog inputs), a 16 MHz crystal oscillator, a micro USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header, and a reset button. It contains everything needed to support the microcontroller; simply connect it to a computer with a USB cable or power it with a AC-to-DC adapter or battery to get started.

The Leonardo differs from all preceding boards in that the ATmega32u4 has built-in USB communication, eliminating the need for a secondary processor. This allows the Leonardo to appear to a connected computer as a mouse and keyboard, in addition to a virtual (CDC) serial / COM port. It also has other implications for the behavior of the board; these are detailed on the getting started page.

Summary

Communication

The Leonardo has a number of facilities for communicating with a computer, another Arduino, or other microcontrollers. The ATmega32U4 provides UART TTL (5V) serial communication, which is available on digital pins 0 (RX) and 1 (TX). The 32U4 also allows for serial (CDC) communication over USB and appears as a virtual com port to software on the computer. The chip also acts as a full speed USB 2.0 device, using standard USB COM drivers. On Windows, a .inf file is required. The Arduino software includes a serial monitor which allows simple textual data to be sent to and from the Arduino board. The RX and TX LEDs on the board will flash when data is being transmitted via the USB connection to the computer (but not for serial communication on pins 0 and 1).

A SoftwareSerial library allows for serial communication on any of the Leonardo's digital pins.

The ATmega32U4 also supports I2C (TWI) and SPI communication. The Arduino software includes a Wire library to simplify use of the I2C bus. For SPI communication, use the SPI library.

The Leonardo appears as a generic keyboard and mouse, and can be programmed to control these input devices using the Keyboard and Mouse classes.

Programming

The Leonardo can be programmed with the Arduino software. Select "Arduino Leonardo from the Tools > Board menu (according to the microcontroller on your board).

The ATmega32U4 on the Arduino Leonardo comes preburned with a bootloader that allows you to upload new code to it without the use of an external hardware programmer. It communicates using the AVR109 protocol.

You can also bypass the bootloader and program the microcontroller through the ICSP (In-Circuit Serial Programming) header.

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