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Families: S32K (general purpose)S32K (general purpose) and S32M (motor control).
Power Your Design with Application Code Hub
Leverage ready-to-use demo code on GitHub for faster development.
FRDM Ecosystem
Design, evaluate and scale your applications in a complete, developer-friendly environment that speeds development without sacrificing safety, reliability or performance.
FRDM development boards are NXP’s value-oriented development platforms for evaluating MCUs and MPUs, enabling rapid prototyping, software development and hardware exploration. Supported by a scalable ecosystem of software, tools, expansion boards and ready-to-use examples, FRDM helps developers move quickly from evaluation to design.
Software Tools
Comprehensive software tools for seamless prototyping and rapid development.
Modular Hardware
Scale your project with modular, quick start FRDM and expansion boards.
Application Code
Access a growing library of application examples and software projects that help you quickly evaluate, prototype and develop with FRDM development boards.
Applications
Automotive
Evaluate FRDM boards for automotive use cases, including vehicle networking, motor control and safety-oriented system development.
Learn more.Industrial
Select FRDM development boards for industrial applications, including factory automation, industrial networking, HMI, vision and edge AI development.
Learn more.Development Focus
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Accelerate Evaluation and Prototyping
Quickly evaluate NXP MCUs and MPUs, explore capabilities and validate concepts with platforms designed for learning, software development and rapid prototyping.
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Accelerate Evaluation and Prototyping
Whether you are learning embedded systems, evaluating technologies or creating a proof of concept, FRDM provides a practical starting point.
Who It's For
Students learning embedded development
Engineering teams building proof-of-concept designs
Engineers validating concepts before production design
Teams performing software development and hardware evaluation
Ecosystem
FRDM combines development boards, software tools, application examples, expansion boards, training resources and community support into a unified development experience.
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Development Boards
The foundation of the FRDM ecosystem. These boards are built on NXP's scalable MCU and Processor platforms and provide affordable, application-focused hardware for prototyping, evaluation and development. The portfolio spans automotive and industrial families, including S32K, S32M, MCX, i.MX RT and Wireless microcontrollers and i.MX Application Processors based boards, supporting applications such as vehicle control, motor control, industrial automation, energy management, connectivity, sensing and edge intelligence.
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Software and Tools
A complete development environment that helps engineers configure, develop, debug and optimize applications.
Key Tools include:
- MCUXpresso for VS Code.
- Zephyr RTOS.
- S32 Design Studio for automotive development workflows.
- Comprehensive SDKs, middleware, examples and software enablement package tailored to FRDM platforms.
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Application Examples
Accelerate development with a growing collection of open source software examples, demos and reference applications available through the Application Code Hub. Fully hosted on GitHub, these ready-to-use projects help developers rapidly evaluate technologies and build proof-of-concepts.
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Expansion Boards
Scale from evaluation to application prototyping with a broad portfolio of expansion boards designed for the FRDM ecosystem. Leveraging industry-standard expansion interfaces, developers can easily add sensing, connectivity, control and edge intelligence capabilities while using the same base hardware platform.
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Training and Community
Access technical documentation, tutorials, software downloads, training resources and community support throughout the development lifecycle.FRDM Training Hub.
Documentation
| Document | Type | Date |
|---|---|---|
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Design without Bounds with FRDM FRDM Development Ecosystem: Flexible and rapid development. |
Product Presentation | Jun 20, 2025 |
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FRDM, Industrial and IoT Ecosystem Brochure Processors Max 120 characters including spaces. Add a concise description of the document and its value. |
Fact Sheet | Dec 18, 2024 |
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FRDM Automotive Ecosystem Brochure Max 120 characters including spaces. Add a concise description of the document and its value. |
Fact Sheet | Dec 18, 2024 |
Open Source Software Examples
FAQs
What is the different between NXP's evaluation boards, FRDM development boards and evaluation kits?
NXP evaluation boards offer access to almost every feature so that you can evaluate different features in the controller or processor. FRDM is cost-effective and offers access to a limited set of features.
How do I extend an FRDM board's hardware, and how do I know the expansion board I buy will have software support?
FRDM hardware is modular by design, and the key engineering constraint is header compatibility plus verified software enablement. The authoritative compatibility source is the Expansion Board Hub . Use it together with ACH.
Can I use Arduino shields with FRDM boards?
Yes, FRDM development board implements industry-standard headers such as Arduino, Pmod and mikroBUS to expand capabilities with add-on expansion boards. Before using it, NXP recommends verifying documentation to ensure that the versions are compatible.
Which FRDM MCU board should I choose for motor control?
Motor control is one of the core target use cases across the MCX portfolio, but the right board depends on how many motors you drive and whether you also need an HMI. For the automotive side (FRDM-A-S32K1/S32K3), motor control on the majority of boards is supported through the DEVKIT-MOTORGD Arduino shield (GD3000 BLDC motor driver EVB); exclusively FRDM-A-S32M276 has motor-control support natively on the board. Plan the shield into your BOM accordingly.
What is the actual toolchain and OS story for FRDM — can I develop in VS Code and Zephyr instead of a vendor IDE?
You can develop in VS Code and Zephyr in FRDM boards for industrial and IoT but you will need to use MCUXpresso as the development environment. For FRDM for automotive, you need S32 Design Studio and its own toolchains as a development environment.