Continuing the example from the previous page. The Microchip ATmega168P looked like the perfect starting point during the first weeks of development, but changes to the specification caused a need for more Flash memory. Or for another example, perhaps the Flash requirement estimates were too conservative and a smaller device could be selected, thereby reducing the cost. Microchip  megaAVR microcontrollers offer pin, code and feature compatible migration paths to make sure that no development time is lost when having to make changes such as these. For instance, the ATmega328P would provide more Flash, or the ATmega48P if less Flash was the requirement. When encountering larger specification changes that require more general-purpose I/O pins or more peripherals, such devices are also available. Again using the ATmega168P as an example, moving over to the ATmega164P would still give code compatibility, and the common peripherals are identical—but this MCU has 44 pins instead of 32 pins. This minimizes the effort needed to move between devices and allows for flexibility and a reactive approach to specification changes in the development phase.