Going with the factory default can be fine. But an upgrade could give a performance boost plus added functionality. Many of the NXP i.MX RT evaluation boards have an LPC4322 based debug circuit on it. One example for this is the i.MX RT1010 board.
On such boards, one of the first steps I do is: upgrading the firmware and change it to a better option: improved speed, SWO support plus avoiding issues with the USB MSD device.
Continue readingThe Seeed Studio ‘Arch Mix’ board is a small and versatile development board with an NXP i.MX RT1052 on it, and it costs only $29.90. So I was not able to resist and just have ordered one so I can explore it.
Seeed Arch Mix Top Side
With the cost of an single pin, many ARM Cortex-M boards including the NXP i.MX RT1064 can produde SWO data: think about a pin able to stream data out of the chip in realtime. For example interrupt activity which otherwise might be hard to capture:
SWO Interrupt Trace
The NXP LPC845-BRK board is a tiny an inexpensive (sub $6) breakout board. The board includes a CMSIS-DAP (LPC11U35) on-board debug probe which can be used as a debug probe to debug any NXP LPC, Kinetis or i.MX RT device 🙂
LPC845-BRK used to debug a Sumo Battle Robot
It is a common thing to boot a Linux system (see the Raspberry Pi) from a micro SD card. It is not that common for a microcontroller. The NXP i.MX RT ARM Cortex-M7 fills that gap between these two worlds. No surprise that it features a ROM bootloader which can boot from a micro SD card.
SD Card with i.MX RT1052
In “First Steps with the NXP i.MX RT1064-EVK Board” I mentioned that the board kit came with a camera module, but it was unclear to me which module was included in the kit. I know it now: it is the ON Semiconductor MT9M114 :-).
Image from the MT9M114
I always reserve time between Christmas and New Year to get my hands on technology pieces which I might not have any time otherwise. Among different things I ordered the NXP i.MX RT1064-EVK board from Mouser.com, and it arrived right before Christmas. Time to have it unboxed and started….
i.MX RT1064 Processor
NXP has just released the 10.2.1 update of their flagship Eclipse based IDE. While the number increase from 10.2.0 to 10.2.1 indicates a minor release, there are a several things which make me move over to that new release.
MCUXpresso IDE 10.2.1 build 795
It is never too early to start thinking about Halloween projects :-).
rendered Eyes with i.MX RT
When I ordered originally the MIMXRT1050-EVK from Mouser, it was without the LCD display (see “MCUXpresso IDE V10.1.0 with i.MX RT1052 Crossover Processor“. I ordered the LCD for the board soon after writing that article, but I was too busy with the university lectures and exams to get a hand on it. Finally I have spent a few hours at night and I proudly can say: the display is working 🙂
In “Eclipse MCUXpresso IDE 10.1 with integrated MCUXpresso Configuration Tools” I mentioned that I wanted to try the i.MX RT1050 processor. Well, finally my ordered board from Mouser arrived, right on time for the week-end, so I had a chance to use that ARM Cortex-M7 running at 600 MHz :-).
i.MX RT1050 EVK
MCU on Eclipse 