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The following section describes the steps to boot the FRDM-IMX91.
Development kit contains:
Get started developing your application on the FRDM-IMX91 with the out-of-the-box video. For more information please visit the i.MX 91 Applications Processor documentation.
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Figure 1. FRDM-IMX91 top
Figure 2. FRDM-IMX91 bottom
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The FRDM-IMX91 comes with a pre-built NXP Linux binary demo image flashed on the eMMC. Without modifying the binary inside, booting from the eMMC provides a default system with certain features for building other applications on top of Linux.
To understand more about NXP’s Embedded Linux®, continue reading the next sections.
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Connect the supplied USB Type-C cable to the debug UART port P16
, then connect the other end of the cable to a host computer.
Two UART connections will appear on the host computer. The first port is for A55 core system debugging.
If you are unfamiliar with terminal applications, please view one of the following tutorials before continuing to step 1.4: Minicom Tutorial, Tera Term Tutorial, PuTTY Tutorial.
To debug under Linux, make sure CH342F Linux driver is installed.
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SW1 [4-1] is the boot configuration switch. By default, the boot device is eMMC/uSDHC1.
BOOT MODE | SW1-4 | SW1-3 | SW1-2 | SW1-1 |
---|---|---|---|---|
Serial Downloader | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
USDHC1 8-bit eMMC 5.1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
USDHC2 4-bit SD3.0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
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Plug the parallel LCD panel (TM050RDH03-41) into P11
2x20 Pin EXPI. Connect the power supply cable to the power connector (P1). Switch DTB to “imx91-11x11-frdm-tianma-wvga-panel.dtb” in u-boot phase.
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Connect the power supply cable to the power connector (P1
).
The board has been set up to boot from eMMC by default. The processor starts executing the bootable image from eMMC. Information is printed in the serial console for the Arm® Cortex®-A55. As the board boots up, you will see 1 penguin appear in the upper left-hand corner of the LCD panel, and then you will see the Linux terminal Icon on the top left and timer on right top corner. Congratulations, you are up and running.
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To login into the Linux running on the FRDM-IMX91, use “root” as the default login username for the i.MX Linux OS. There is no password. Use below command to load Wi-Fi and Bluetooth modules in the kernel.
1234root@imx91frdm:~# modprobe moal mod_para=nxp/wifi_mod_para.conf
root@imx91frdm:~# ifconfig mlan0 up
root@imx91frdm:~# modprobe btnxpuart
root@imx91frdm:~# hciconfig hci0 reset
For more information on please visit : FRDM-IMX91 Connectivity training - NXP Community
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The i.MX Linux board support package (BSP) is a collection of binary files, source code and support files that are used to boot an Embedded Linux image on a specific i.MX development platform.
Current releases of Linux binary demo files can be found on Linux download page. Additional documentation is available in the i.MX Linux documentation bundle under the Linux sections of the i.MX Software and Development Tools.
FRDM-IMX91 support booting from eMMC and SD card.
This Getting Started guide only outlines a few methods of flashing the Linux BSP image to an SD card. Experienced Linux developers can explore other options if desired.
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The latest pre-built images for the FRDM-IMX91 are available on the FRDM i.MX 91 Development Board.
The pre-built NXP Linux binary demo image provides a typical system and basic set of features for using and evaluating the processor. Without modifying the system, the users can evaluate hardware interfaces, test SoC features and run user space applications.
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In addition to the connections from "Out of the Box" section, connect the USB1
to the host machine using the proper USB cable.
Turn off the board. Refer to the "1.5 Boot Switch Setup" section and configure the board to boot on serial download protocol (SDP) mode.
Depending on the OS used in the host machine, the way to transfer the Linux BSP image onto an SD card can vary. Choose an option below for detailed instructions:
Download the latest stable files from UUU GitHub page. If further assistance for UUU is needed, please refer to this extensive tutorial .
uuu
libusb1
(via apt-get or any other package manager)By default, this procedure flashes the image to the SD card. Check the UUU GitHub page for reference on how to flash the image to other devices.
Open a terminal application and change the directory to the location where uuu and the latest Linux distribution for FRDM-IMX91 are located. Add execution permission to the uuu file and execute it. uuu will wait for the USB device to connect
1$ chmod a+x uuu $ sudo ./uuu -b sd_all imx-image-full-imx91frdm.rootfs.wic.zst
Confirm FRDM-IMX91 boot mode is switched to serial download mode, and turn on the board, uuu
will start to flash the images to the SD card.
When it finishes, turn off the board and the terminal. If further assistance with configuring the board to boot from SD card is needed, please consult the 1.5 Boot Switch Setup.
Download the latest stable files from UUU GitHub page. If further assistance for UUU is needed, please refer to this extensive tutorial.
uuu.exe
By default, this procedure flashes the image to the SD card. Check the UUU GitHub page for reference on how to flash the image to other devices.
Open the command prompt application and navigate to the directory where the uuu.exe file and the Linux release for the FRDM-IMX91 are located.
1uuu.exe -b sd_all imx-image-full-imx91frdm.rootfs.wic.zst
Confirm FRDM-IMX91 boot mode is switched to serial download mode, and turn on the board, uuu will start to copy the images to the board.
When it finishes, turn off the board and the command prompt application. If further assistance with configuring the board to boot from SD card is needed, please consult the 1.5 Boot Switch Setup.
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In the section, a brief guide of how to build Yocto BSP image for FRDM-IMX91 is introduced, along with how to add Matter support and how to build Debian release image
The FRDM-IMX91 BSP release is based on i.MX SW 2024 Q3 release with Yocto Project 5.0 (Scarthgap). To build FRDM-IMX91 image from source code, please first check i.MX Yocto Project User's Guide to get familiar with Yocto project and Yocto build. Then please follow below steps to build image for FRDM-IMX91.
12$ repo init -u https://github.com/nxp-imx/imx-manifest -b imx-linux-scarthgap -m imx-6.6.36-2.1.0.xml
$ repo sync
12$ cd ${MY_YOCTO}/sources
$ git clone https://github.com/nxp-imx-support/meta-imx-frdm.git
12$ cd ${MY_YOCTO}
$ MACHINE=imx91frdm DISTRO=fsl-imx-xwayland source sources/meta-imx-frdm/tools/imx-frdm-setup.sh -b frdm-imx91
1$ bitbake imx-image-full
1$ zstdcat imx-image-full-imx91frdm.rootfs.wic.zst | sudo dd of=/dev/sdx bs=1M && sync
Or using uuu to burn image into SD card:
1$ uuu -b sd_all imx-image-full-imx91frdm.rootfs.wic.zst
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FRDM-IMX91 has support for Matter. To include Matter support, please follow below steps to include Matter layer into Yocto build.
12$ repo init -u https://github.com/nxp-imx/imx-manifest -b imx-linux-scarthgap -m imx-6.6.36-2.1.0.xml
$ repo sync
123$ cd ${MY_YOCTO}/sources/meta-nxp-connectivity
$ git remote update
$ git checkout imx_matter_2024_q3
12$ cd ${MY_YOCTO}/sources
$ git clone https://github.com/nxp-imx-support/meta-imx-frdm.git
12$ cd ${MY_YOCTO}
$ MACHINE=imx91frdm-iwxxx-matter DISTRO=fsl-imx-xwayland source sources/meta-imx-frdm/tools/imx-frdm-matter-setup.sh bld-xwayland-imx91
1$ bitbake imx-image-multimedia
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FRDM-IMX91 has support for Debian 12 OS. i.MX Debian Linux SDK distribution is a combination of NXP-provided kernel and boot loaders with a Debian distro user-space image, which includes:
For more details of NXP Debian Linux SDK Distribution, please check NXP Debian Linux SDK Distribution for i.MX and Layerscape
To create an SD card with Debian for FRDM-IMX91, please follow below steps.
123$ wget http://www.nxp.com/lgfiles/sdk/lsdk2412/flex-installer
$ chmod +x flex-installer
$ sudo mv flex-installer /usr/bin
1234# format SD card
$ flex-installer -i pf -d /dev/sdb
# automatically download and install images into SD card
$ flex-installer -i auto -d /dev/mmcblk1 -m imx91frdm
1$ dhclient -i end0
1$ date -s "22 Nov 2024 09:00:00"
1$ debian-post-install-pkg desktop
1$ debian-post-install-pkg server
To build Debian image with Flexbuild for FRDM-IMX91, please follow below steps.
12345$ git clone https://github.com/nxp/flexbuild
$ cd flexbuild && source setup.env
#Continue to run commands below in case you need to build in Docker due to lack of Ubuntu 22.04 or Debian 12 host
$ bld docker
$ source setup.env
1$ bld -m imx91frdm
To build individual part of the image, please check below command list for Flexbuild usage
123456789$ bld uboot -m imx91frdm (compile u-boot image for imx91frdm)
$ bld linux (compile linux kernel for all arm64 i.MX machines)
$ bld bsp -m imx91frdm (generate BSP firmware)
$ bld boot (generate boot partition tarball including kernel, dtb, modules, distro bootscript for iMX machines)
$ bld multimedia (build multimedia components for i.MX platforms)
$ bld rfs -r debian:server (generate Debian server rootfs)
$ bld apps -r debian:server (compile apps against runtime dependencies of Debian server RootFS)
$ bld merge-apps -r debian:server (merge iMX-specific apps into target Debian server RootFS)
$ bld packrfs -r debian:server (pack and compress target debian server rootfs)
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To enable faster development for users of all skill levels, NXP provides extensive example applications to showcase various features and capabilities of the platform.
The Application Code Hub (ACH) repository enables engineers to easily find microcontroller and processor software examples, code snippets, application software packs and demos developed by NXP in-house experts. This space provides a quick, easy and consistent way to find microcontroller and processor applications.
ACH provides filter and search options to quickly find specific applications. With the support of Git capabilities, there is an easy way to import and use applications within user’s development environments.
To learn more details of Application Code Hub (ACH), please visit this link.
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The GoPoint for i.MX Application Processors is a user-friendly application launches pre-built applications packed with the Linux BSP, giving users an excellent out-of-the-box experience and hands-on experience with i.MX SoC's capabilities. GoPoint highlights advanced features while providing practical solutions for implementation, with source code and build recipes for the applications provided in GitHub.
To learn more details of GoPoint, please visit this link .
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The serial-to-USB drivers are available at CH342F Linux Drivers .
On the command prompt of the Linux host machine, run the following command to determine the port number:
1ls /dev/ttyCH343USB*
The first number is for Arm® Cortex®-A55.
Use the following commands to install and run the Minicom program:
1sudo apt-get install minicom
1sudo minicom /dev/ttyCH343USB * -s
Configure Minicom as show in Figure and Exit configure.
The WCH USB-serial chip on FRDM-IMX91 enumerates 2 serial ports. Assume that the ports are
COM11
,COM12
. The first
Port(COM11
) is for the serial console communication from Arm® Cortex®-A55. The serial-to-USB drivers
are available at
CH342F Windows Driver .
Note: To determine the port number of the i.MX board virtual COM port, open the Windows device manager and find USB serial Port in Ports (COM and LPT).
Tera Term is an open source terminal emulation application. This program displays the information sent from the NXP development platform’s virtual serial port.
PuTTY is a popular terminal-emulation application. This program displays the information sent from the NXP development platform's virtual serial port.
System security and integrity is always one of the most critical aspects to be considered in product development.
FRDM-IMX91 support secure boot feature and encrypted boot feature, helping to prevent unauthorized software execution during the device boot sequence and protect bootloader data from unauthorized access.
For more details of secure boot feature, please check application note AN12312 “Secure Boot on AHAB Supported Devices”.
For more details of encrypted boot feature, please check application note AN13994 “i.MX Encrypted Boot on AHAB-Enabled Devices”.
In certain use cases, there is requirement for the device boot time, which means the device needs to complete booting in a given time limit.
To optimize the boot time, FRDM-IMX91 supports falcon mode in U-Boot. Falcon mode is a feature in U-Boot that enables fast booting by allowing SPL to directly start the Linux kernel. It completely skips the U-Boot loading and initialization, with the effect of reducing the time spent in the bootloader.
For how to enable falcon mode and further optimize boot time, please check AN14093 “Fast Boot on i.MX 8M and i.MX 9 Using Falcon Mode and Kernel Optimizations”.
Get Familiar with the Board
Boot from eMMC
Connect USB Debug Cable
Boot Switch Setup
Connect LCD Panel (Optional)
Board Boot Up
Load Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 802.15.4 Driver Modules