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Overview

boards/nxp/frdm_imx91/doc/index.rst

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.. zephyr:board:: frdm_imx91

Overview


The FRDM-IMX91 board is a low-cost and compact platform designed to show the most commonly used features of the i.MX 91 Applications Processor in a small and low cost package. The FRDM-IMX91 board is an entry-level development board, which helps developers to get familiar with the processor before investing a large amount of resources in more specific designs.

Hardware


  • i.MX 91 applications processor

    • The i.MX 91 Applications Processor features an Arm Cortex®-A55 core that can operate at speeds of up to 1.4 GHz.
  • RAM: 2GB LPDDR4

  • Storage:

    • SanDisk 16GB eMMC5.1
    • microSD Socket
  • Wireless:

    • Murata Type-2EL (SDIO+UART+SPI) module. It is based on NXP IW612 SoC, which supports dual-band (2.4 GHz /5 GHz) 1x1 Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, and 802.15.4
  • USB:

    • Two USB 2.0 Type C connectors
  • Ethernet:

    • ENET: 10/100/1000 Mbit/s RGMII Ethernet connected with external PHY YT8521
    • ENET_QoS: 10/100/1000 Mbit/s RGMII Ethernet supporting TSN connected with external PHY YT8521
  • PCIe:

    • One M.2/NGFF Key E mini card 75-pin connector
  • Connectors:

    • 40-Pin Dual Row Header
  • LEDs:

    • 1x Power status LED
    • 2x UART LED
  • Debug:

    • JTAG 20-pin connector
    • MicroUSB for UART debug

Supported Features

.. zephyr:board-supported-hw::

Devices

System Clock

This board configuration uses a system clock frequency of 24 MHz. Cortex-A55 Core runs up to 1.4 GHz.

Serial Port

This board configuration uses a single serial communication channel with the CPU's UART1 for A55 core.

uSDHC (SD or eMMC Interface on A55)

i.MX 91 processor has three ultra secured digital host controller (uSDHC) modules for SD/eMMC interface support. On the FRDM-IMX91 board, the uSDHC2 interface of the processor connects to the MicroSD card slot (P13), and uSDHC1 interface connects to the eMMC memory (located at the SOM board). DTS overlay file "usdhc1.overlay" and "usdhc2.overlay" are provided to enable specified the uSDHC controller.

Currently it rely on U-boot or Linux to boot Zephyr, so Zephyr need to use different uSDHC controller from U-boot or Linux to avoid resource conflict. For example, if FRDM-IMX91 board boots from SD Card which uses uSDHC2, Zephyr can use MMC which uses uSDHC1 for testing:

.. zephyr-app-commands:: :zephyr-app: tests/subsys/sd/mmc :host-os: unix :board: frdm_imx91/mimx9131 :goals: build :gen-args: -DEXTRA_DTC_OVERLAY_FILE=usdhc1.overlay

And if FRDM-IMX91 board boots from MMC which uses uSDHC1, Zephyr can use SD Card which uses uSDHC2 for testing:

.. zephyr-app-commands:: :zephyr-app: tests/subsys/sd/sdmmc :host-os: unix :board: frdm_imx91/mimx9131 :goals: build :gen-args: -DEXTRA_DTC_OVERLAY_FILE=usdhc2.overlay

User Button

The user buttons K2 is connected to onboard GPIO expander PCAL6524, use the following command to test user buttons:

.. zephyr-app-commands:: :zephyr-app: samples/basic/button :host-os: unix :board: frdm_imx91/mimx9131 :goals: build

Run the app, press and release K2 button, then the following log could be found on Zephyr console: .. code-block:: console

*** Booting Zephyr OS build v4.3.0-6943-gc384779e39ac ***
Press the button
Button 11 pressed at 3058829772
Button 11 released at 3064215344

Programming and Debugging


.. zephyr:board-supported-runners::

There are multiple methods to program and debug Zephyr

Option 1. Boot Zephyr by Using U-Boot Command

U-Boot "go" command is used to load and kick Zephyr to Cortex-A55 Core.

Stop the board at U-Boot command line, then need to download Zephyr binary image into DDR memory, it can use tftp:

.. code-block:: console

tftp 0x80000000 zephyr.bin

Or copy the Zephyr image zephyr.bin to SD card and plug the card into the board, for example if copy the image to the FAT partition of the SD card, use the following U-Boot command to load the image into DDR memory (assuming the SD card is dev 1, fat partition ID is 1, they could be changed based on actual partitions):

.. code-block:: console

fatload mmc 1:1 0x80000000 zephyr.bin;

Then use U-Boot to load and kick zephyr.bin to Cortex-A55 Core:

.. code-block:: console

dcache off; icache flush; go 0x80000000

Use this configuration to run basic Zephyr applications and kernel tests, for example, with the :zephyr:code-sample:synchronization sample:

.. zephyr-app-commands:: :zephyr-app: samples/synchronization :host-os: unix :board: frdm_imx91/mimx9131 :goals: build

This will build an image with the synchronization sample app, boot it and display the following console output:

.. code-block:: console

*** Booting Zephyr OS build v4.2.0-4272-g1cbd317fd85e ***
thread_a: Hello World from cpu 0 on frdm_imx91!
thread_b: Hello World from cpu 0 on frdm_imx91!
thread_a: Hello World from cpu 0 on frdm_imx91!
thread_b: Hello World from cpu 0 on frdm_imx91!

Option 2. Boot Zephyr by Using JLink Runner

Hardware Setup

The default runner for the board is JLink runner, there is one SWD connector P14 on the FRDM-IMX91 board, connect P14 to J-Link debugger with Pin1 of P14 connect to SWDCLK, Pin2 of P14 connect to SWDIO, and Pin3 of P14 connect to GND, the VCC of J-Link debugger could connect to P1 of P12 connector.

Flash and Run

Power up the board and stop the board at U-Boot command line.

Then use "west flash" command to load the zephyr.bin image from the host computer and start the Zephyr application on A55 core.

Here is an example for the :zephyr:code-sample:hello_world application.

.. zephyr-app-commands:: :zephyr-app: samples/hello_world :host-os: unix :board: frdm_imx91/mimx9131 :goals: flash

Then the following log could be found on UART1 console:

.. code-block:: console

*** Booting Zephyr OS build v4.3.0-1976-g8f0df404c2ee ***
Hello World! frdm_imx91/mimx9131

Debug

Power up the board and stop the board at U-Boot command line.

Then use "west debug" command to load the zephyr.bin image from the host computer and debug the Zephyr application on A55 core.

Here is an example for the :zephyr:code-sample:hello_world application.

.. zephyr-app-commands:: :zephyr-app: samples/hello_world :host-os: unix :board: frdm_imx91/mimx9131 :goals: debug

Option 3. Boot Zephyr by Using SPSDK Runner

SPSDK runner leverages SPSDK tools (https://spsdk.readthedocs.io), it builds an bootable flash image flash.bin which includes all necessary firmware components. Using west flash command will download the boot image flash.bin to DDR memory, SD card or eMMC flash. By using flash.bin, as no U-Boot image is available, so TF-A will boot up Zephyr on the Cortex-A55 Core directly.

In order to use SPSDK runner, it requires fetching binary blobs, which can be achieved by running the following command:

.. code-block:: console

west blobs fetch hal_nxp

.. note::

It is recommended running the command above after :file:west update.

SPSDK runner is enabled by configure item :kconfig:option:CONFIG_BOARD_NXP_SPSDK_IMAGE, currently it is not enabled by default for FRDM-IMX91 board, so use this configuration to enable it, for example, with the :zephyr:code-sample:synchronization sample:

.. zephyr-app-commands:: :zephyr-app: samples/synchronization :host-os: unix :board: frdm_imx91/mimx9131 :goals: build :gen-args: -DCONFIG_BOARD_NXP_SPSDK_IMAGE=y

If :kconfig:option:CONFIG_BOARD_NXP_SPSDK_IMAGE is available and enabled for the board variant, flash.bin will be built automatically. The programming could be through below commands. Before that, onboard switch SW1[3:0] should be configured to 0b0001 for USB download mode to boot, and USB1 and DBG ports should be connected to Linux host PC. There are 2 serial ports enumerated (115200 8n1), the first port will be used for Cortex-A55 Zephyr's Console. (The flasher is spsdk which already installed via scripts/requirements.txt. On Linux host, USB device permission should be configured per Installation Guide of https://spsdk.readthedocs.io)

.. code-block:: none

load and run without programming. for next flashing, need to reset the board firstly

$ west flash -r spsdk

program to SD card, then set SW1[3:0]=0b0011 to reboot from SD

$ west flash -r spsdk --bootdevice sd

program to emmc card, then set SW1[3:0]=0b0010 to reboot from EMMC

$ west flash -r spsdk --bootdevice=emmc

Then the Zephyr log will be displayed in the first serial port's console.

.. include:: ../../common/board-footer.rst.inc