I have an existing microcontroller system with only one spare UART, but I need 5 of them. It seems like there are some chips on the market for this (SPI/I2C to UART), but they are more expensive than buying a second microcontroller...
Has anyone solved this problem before and can point me in the right direction? I'm not able to multiplex the lines unfortunately, I really do need a FIFO-based system.