Getting Started with the MCIMX7ULP-EVK

Last Modified: 2019-06-10 16:32:17Supports i.MX 7ULP Evaluation Kit

Contents of this document

  • 1

    Out of the Box

  • 2

    Embedded Linux

Purchase your i.MX 7ULP Evaluation Kit

Contents of this document

1. Out of the Box

The following section describes the steps to boot the i.MX 7ULP EVK.

Development kit contains:

  • i.MX 7ULP EVK consisting of a baseboard (the larger board) and a SOM (the smaller board)
  • USB 2.0 cable (standard-A to micro-B)
  • USB Type C cable (standard-A to Type C)
  • 5 V/2 A universal power supply
  • 8 GB SD card with bootable operating system demonstration image

1.1 Get Familiar with the Board

BOARD-MCIMX7ULP-EVK

BOARD-MCIMX7ULP-EVK

IMX7ULP-BOARD-BACK1

IMX7ULP-BOARD-BACK1

1.2 Insert the SD card

The kit includes an SD card (J1) with a pre-built NXP Linux binary demo image. Without modifying the binary inside the SD card, booting from this SD card provides a default system with certain features for building other applications on top of Linux. The software is described in the following sections.

1.3 Connect USB Debug Cable

Connect the micro-B end of the supplied USB cable into Debug UART port J6. Connect the other end of the cable to a host computer.

If you are not sure about how to use a terminal application, try one of the following tutorials depending on the operating system of the host machine: Tera Term Tutorial, PuTTY Tutorial, Minicom Tutorial.

1.4 Connect the HDMI Cable

To see the user interface provided with the image binary connect a monitor via the HDMI connector on the baseboard (J4).

1.5 Boot Switch Setup

The boot sequence is detailed in the i.MX 7ULP Reference Manual. In short, the boot modes of the i.MX boards are controlled by the boot configuration switches.

The switches set the boot media (depending on board, i.e. SD card, eMMC, NAND), the serial download protocol mode (SDP) or the value set on eFuses.

The SDP is also the fallback for the boot media, in other words, when the switches are configured to boot from SD card but the SD card slot is empty, or the SD card binary content is not bootable, the boot sequence continues to the SDP boot.

IMX7ULP-BOARD-BS1

IMX7ULP-BOARD-BS1

The following table lists the boot switch settings on the i.MX 7ULP EVK board. The same information can be found on i.MX 7ULP Reference Manual and on silkscreen on the board near the switches.

Table 1. Boot modes available for i.MX 7ULP EVK.

Boot Media SW1 [D1-D4]
SD card 1001
eMMC 1000
SDP 01XX

Note: Make sure the boot switch is configured to boot from SD card.

1.6 Connect Power Supply

Connect the power supply cable to the power connector on the baseboard (P1).

Power the board by flipping the switch (SW1).

The processor starts executing from the on-chip ROM code. With the default boot switch setup, the code reads the fuses to define the media where it is expected to have a bootable image. After it finds a bootable image, the U-Boot execution should begin automatically.

Information is printed on the serial console for the Cortex®-A7. If you do not stop the U-Boot process, it continues to boot the kernel.

1.7 Congratulations! Linux has booted!

Once Linux is booted, log in using the user name root and no password.

Note: To proceed to U-Boot, press any key before the value of the U-Boot environment variable, bootdelay, decreases and before it times out (default 3 seconds). If you stop the U-Boot process, you can run the following command to continue with the Linux boot process: # boot.

NextEmbedded Linux

2. Embedded Linux

This section is applicable ONLY if attempting to load a Linux operating system on the board.

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 the i.MX 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 Tool.

2.1 Overview

Before the Linux OS kernel can boot on i.MX board, the Linux kernel is loaded to a boot device (SD card, eMMC and so on) and the boot switches are set to boot that device.

There are various ways to download the Linux BSP image for different boards and boot devices.

For this getting started guide, only a few methods to transfer the Linux BSP image to an SD card are listed. Experienced Linux developers can explore other options.

2.2 Download an NXP Linux BSP pre-built image

The latest pre-built images for the i.MX 7ULP EVK is available on the Linux download page under the most current version on Linux.

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, users can evaluate hardware interfaces, test SoC features, and run user space applications.

When more flexibility is desired, an SD card can be loaded with individual components (boot loader, kernel, dtb file, and rootfs file) one-by-one or the .sdcard image is loaded and the individual parts are overwritten with the specific components.

2.3 Burn NXP Linux BSP image using the Universal Update Utility (UUU)

In addition to the connections from Out of the Box chapter, connect the USB Type-C cable (SOM J2) to the host machine.

Turn off the board. Consult Boot Switch Setup and configure the board to boot on SDP (Serial Download Protocol) 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:

PreviousOut of the Box
NextProject and Tutorials: Tera Term Tutorial

Tera Term Tutorial

Tera Term Tutorial

Tera Term is a very popular open source terminal emulation application. This program can be used to display information sent from your NXP development platform's virtual serial port.

  1. Download Tera Term from SourceForge. After the download, run the installer and then return to this webpage to continue

    2. Download

  2. Launch Tera Term. The first time it launches, it will show you the following dialog. Select the serial option. Assuming your board is plugged in, there should be a COM port automatically populated in the list Get Started with MC56F80000-EVK
  3. Configure the serial port settings (using the COM port number identified earlier) to 115200 baud rate, 8 data bits, no parity and 1 stop bit. To do this, go to Setup → Serial Port and change the settings
  4. Verify that the connection is open. If connected, Tera Term will show something like below in its title bar Get Started with MC56F80000-EVK
  5. You're ready to go

PreviousEmbedded Linux
NextProject and Tutorials: PuTTY Tutorial

PuTTY Tutorial

PuTTY Tutorial

PuTTY is a popular terminal emulation application. This program can be used to display information sent from your NXP development platform's virtual serial port.

  1. Download PuTTY using the button below. After the download, run the installer and then return to this webpage to continue

    2. Download

  2. PuTTY by either double-clicking on the *.exe file you downloaded or from the Start menu, depending on the type of download you selected Get Started with MC56F80000-EVK
  3. Click Open to open the serial connection. Assuming the board is connected, and you entered the correct COM port, the terminal window will open. If the configuration is not correct, PuTTY will alert you
  4. You're ready to go

PreviousProject and Tutorials: Tera Term Tutorial
NextProject and Tutorials: Minicom Tutorial

Minicom Tutorial

Serial Communication Console Setup

On the command prompt of the Linux host machine, run the following command to determine the port number:

$ ls /dev/ttyUSB*

The smaller number is for Cortex-A7 and the bigger number is for Cortex-M4.

Minicom Tutorial

Use the following commands to install and run the serial communication program (minicom as an example):

  1. Install Minicom using Ubuntu package manager

    $ ls /dev/ttyUSB*

  2. Launch Minicom using a console window using the port number determined earlier

    $ sudo minicom /dev/ttyUSB* -s

  3. Configure Minicom as show in the following figure:
    4. GS-MCIMX7SABRE-MINICOM
  4. The next step is to Connect the HDMI cable

PreviousProject and Tutorials: PuTTY Tutorial
NextDesign Resources

Design Resources

Board Information

Software

Additional Resources

When working with embedded systems, it is important to bear in mind that the documentation is wide and diverse. It is common to have different levels of documentation. The i.MX 7ULP EVK board has some documents. However, this board’s processor is i.MX 7ULP which is documented with SoC level documents. The BSPs available are documented with the BSP level documents.

Choose an option below for related documents:

Board Documentation

In the case of i.MX 7ULP EVK the following documents are available.

SoC Documentation

In the case of i.MX 7ULP SoC the following documents are available.

  • i.MX 7ULP Data Sheet. Describes the SoC physical and electrical characteristics, the part number meaning
  • i.MX 7ULP Reference Manual. Lists what the SoC supports, the registers and the memory map. Describes the features, workflow, the boot flow, and the meaning of each register's bits
  • i.MX 7ULP Errata. List the hardware issues for that SoC. It may be an Arm core or an i.MX core issue. It may or may not have a workaround

Software Documentation

For i.MX 7ULP EVK the following BSPs are available.

  • Linux Kernel distribution using the Yocto Project: For details, see the documentation in i.MX 7ULP EVK BSP Linux documents
  • Android: For details, see the documentation in i.MX 7ULP EVK BSP Android documents

Each BSP has a set of documents, below all the BSP documentation is described. The order the documents appear is the recommended read order.

i.MX 7ULP EVK BSP Linux Documents

  • Linux Doc Bundle. Downloads all the i.MX Linux BSP files listed here as one tarball
  • i.MX Linux Release Notes. If you do not know where to start, start here! It lists the supported boards, the supported features, the packages versions, and the issue list
  • i.MX Linux Users Guide. Describes the steps to download, build and deploy the i.MX Linux BSP. For example, detail on how to configure, build and deploy U-Boot booting from different media
  • i.MX Yocto Project Users Guide Linux. Describes the steps to download, build, deploy and configure the Yocto Project metadata, and build an image
  • i.MX BSP Porting Guide Linux. Describes the steps to port the i.MX Linux BSP to a custom board or platform
  • i.MX Reference Manual Linux. Describes the i.MX BSP Linux Kernel drivers, features, and how to configure the kernel. It also describes how drivers work
  • i.MX Graphics Users Guide Linux. Describes how to test and configure the GPU for custom use cases

i.MX 7ULP EVK BSP Android Documents

  • Android Doc Bundle. Downloads all the i.MX Android BSP files listed here as one tarball
  • Android Release Notes. If you do not know where to start, start here! It lists the supported boards, the supported features, the packages version, and the known issue list
  • Android Quick Start Guide. Describes the board, the files in the i.MX Android BSP, how to deploy and foot the images using different displays
  • Android Users Guide. It is the document with instructions on how to set a Linux machine to build Android, how to build, configure, and deploy the i.MX Android BSP
  • i.MX BSP Porting Guide Android. Describes the steps to port the i.MX Android BSP to a custom board or platform; including steps to configure multimedia and display
  • i.MX Graphics Users Guide Android. Describes how to test and configure the GPU for custom use cases
  • Android Frequently Asked Questions. Lists frequently asked a question related to Android

PreviousProject and Tutorials: Minicom Tutorial