> My question is this. I think it is possible to send the data directly
> to MATLAB using the 'serial' function. Is this correct.

I have no idea.  I don't know anything about MATLAB.

> If so, what is the fastest baud rate it can work at?

This has nothing to do with MATLAB but rather the serial port on your PC and
the crystal frequency on your PIC.  The fastest standard baud rate both ends
can do reliably is 115.2Kbits/sec.  PICs can certainly go faster, but the
baud rate resolution diminishes as the baud rate generator divide values
gets small.  Higher baud rates may not be exported by the PC or its
software, and it may not be possible to hit them close enough unless you use
a crystal just for that purpose.

Also note that "normal" Maxxim chips or equivalent top out at 120Kbaud,
although you could certainly design an interface yourself that can go much
faster.  There are probably chips too, I haven't looked.

> If I have to send this in
> real time I have to send 320kbs. (I think... sampling at 20kHz, 16
> bits per sample....is that right!?).

Yup, and 320Kbits/sec is the raw data only.  It doesn't take into account
the start bit, stop bit, and any protocol overhead you may need.  In short,
you're screwed.  RS-232 isn't the right answer for this problem.

Other possibilities are parallel port (requires some OS driver work) or USB
(significant development and something other than a PIC).

How much data is there?  Is it constantly streaming or finite?  If finite,
maybe the data can be captured into a large RAM, then transmitted to the PC
more slowly later.  If this were a time=$$ problem and needed some way to do
this NOW, you could use a DR-11W board with an off the shelf driver I have
for Windows.


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