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Out of the Box
Let's take your Wi-Fi module for a test drive using an i.MX applications processor evaluation board. This guide contains different NXP i.MX evaluation boards that include an NXP Wi-Fi device on the compute module.
1.1 Get familiar with the Hardware
The links below will take you to the Getting Started pages for your evaluation board; it will guide you with detailed instructions on how to download and install the required software.
Select your i.MX MPU platform.
1.2 Connect your Wi-Fi Module
Below is information on the supported Wi-Fi chipsets, the modules that enable connectivity with this device, and how to connect the device to your evaluation board.
88W8987
The 88W8987 is a highly integrated Wi-Fi 5 (2.4/5 GHz) and Bluetooth 5 single-chip solution designed to support the speed, reliability and quality requirements of Very High Throughput (VHT) products. The System-on-Chip (SoC) provides both simultaneous and independent operation of IEEE 802.11ac (Wave 2) in a 1x1 antenna configuration with data rates up to MCS9 (433 Mbit/s), and Bluetooth 5 (including Bluetooth Low Energy).
Host supported host interfaces are SDIO 3.0 and high-speed UART interfaces for connecting Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to the host processor.
AzureWave AW-CM358SM
The AW-CM358SM module is included on the compute module for the i.MX 8M Nano evaluation board, so no additional evaluation hardware is necessary to connect the 88W8987 Wi-Fi SoC in this mode to the i.MX 8M Nano processor.
i.MX 8M Nano evaluation kit, with an NXP 88W898-based module included on the compute module.
Get Software
2.1 Download the pre-built binaries
Pre-built binary images for each i.MX MPU evaluation board available for all major Android and Linux BSP releases. Beginning with Android BSP 10.0.0-2.5.0, and Linux BSP 5.4.47-2.2.0, NXP’s Wi-Fi drivers are integrated into the pre-built binary images. Pre-built binary images from earlier BSP releases will not include support for NXP’s Wi-Fi drivers.
The pre-built binary images are available from the links below:
2.2 Download the Universal Update Utility (UUU)
The universal update utility (UUU) is an open-source tool developed by NXP, and is used to program binary images into an i.MX MPU. In order to use the NXP Wi-Fi driver and to run the evaluation software, UUU must be used to program the pre-built binary images into the i.MX MPU evaluation board.
UUU is available to download from Github at the link below:
NOTE: On Windows, UUU.exe is not a signed executable, and as a result the download my be blocked by certain web browsers. If this happens, then the download must be manually allowed in the browser’s downloads menu.
2.3 Program evaluation board with pre-built binary images
Run
3.1 Running the Wi-Fi example applications
The user’s guide UM11513 includes the steps necessary to login to the console interface on the i.MX 8M Nano evaluation board, and run the available Wi-Fi test programs.