I would appreciate suggestions for how to transfer data at high speeds between an 8051 and a PC (running Windows).

The application will be an experimental ECU that has multiple MCUs on a CAN bus. This is for a research project, not a production device. Each MCU will handle specialized tasks and should be able to transfer data for datalogging and real-time PC control. I am considering either having direct PC communication with each microcontroller or making a CAN to XX (serial, USB, whatever) bridge.

My first inclination is to use a multiport high speed serial card (8 ports, 961kb/s) so I can use the MCU UARTS and write the PC control program with VB and MatLab. It would require very little new knowledge on my part.
<a href="http://www.jameco.com/cgi-bin/n...">8-port PCI Serial Card


However, I think USB is better suited to my task, but I don't know how difficult it is to use in an MCU and I don't know what PC resources there are for developing with it (VB serial communication is easy - drop the MSCommControl on the form.).

I don't like the idea of Bluetooth and LAN or wireless LAN because they have large protocol stacks that would have to be implemented on the microcontroller. I would like to spend most of my time working on the ECU, not PC-ECU communications.

What do you guys think? I am sure many of you are using alternatives to the aging com port.

Thanks!

- Lee