looking for a microcontroller to use

[still_in_training]

I am more or less a novice at programming, my problem is that I am trying to find an atmel micro controller with 3 uarts, that are also dip packages, the best I have found is the atmega 162, and 164A with 2 uarts...if atmel does not have such a thing, can anyone recommend a way of linking two microcontrollers so I can accomplish all those serial ports I need...

 

[seadolphine2000]

You can go for PIC32F family with 6-UARTs but, the packages will QFP, QFN, TQFP... etc.

Another solution, is to use a compiler like "MikroC" or "MicroBasic" from MikroElektronika - Development tools, Compilers, Books
These compilers have built-in software libraries for UART. I mean, you can configure any two pins of the controller to work as TXD & RXD.

For myself, I used it before with PIC16F84A that doesn't have a UART interface at all.

Hope this helps.

 

[Tahmid]

Hi,
I don't think you'll find any AVR or for the matter PIC in a DIP package that has 3 UARTs. 2, I think, is the max. If you use SMD components, then there are some choices. You could use the 2 hardware UARTs and use 1 software UART. mikroC and mikroBASIC (mikroPASCAL as well) provide library routines for software UART, which is very easy to implement. This is likely to be a more cost effective choice than using 2 AVRs and linking them and unless, you're looking at very high data communication speeds, I think this should be fine.

Hope this helps.
Tahmid.

 

[arthur0]

It would seem that there’s no Atmel uC matching your criteria (PDIP and 3 UARTs).
As an alternative to bit banging (SW emulated UART) and to using 2 uCs, I would suggest you select your favorite uC (preferable one with plenty of memory for beginners) and add an external UART controller (such as EXAR’s dual channel UART, XR88C681 or XR68C681, depending on your endianness, they come in PDIP). This should greatly simplify your software design.

Arthur