On Feb 3, 2010, at 11:23 AM, Isaac Marino Bavaresco wrote:

>> http://www.maxim-ic.com/quick_view2.cfm/qv_pk/6463
>>
> At $4.00/unit @ 1k, it is more expensive than most PIC24 with 4 UARTs.

You could consider using "slave" 16F devices running UART code,  
communicating with the master PIC via SPI or I2C (there are 16F  
devices that will do UART and SPI slave at the same time, aren't there?)

BillW

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