MCUXpresso and i.MX8M Plus cores

[simmania]

Hi,

I'm considering to use the i.MX8M Plus for our project. But I'm a little confused about software development for these devices.
Is it correct that you can use MCUXpresso for the software development of the M7 core in this device, and not for the A53 cores? If so, then I have some questions about that:

Is it correct that you only can run some OS like Linux on the A53 cores? And that you can not do some bare metal programming on the A53 cores?

Can I access all peripherals (in a bare metal way) from the M7 core? How to prevent from the Linux side (A53 cores) accessing the peripherals I want to use on the M7?

Is the development for the M7 using MCUXPresso completely separate from the OS on the A53 cores? If so, how do I communicate between them?

Does MCUXPresso run on the OS that is running on the A53? Or is it running on some host PC and does it connect by a debugger probe?

If using MCUXPresso to configure the device and IO pins. Doesn't that conflict with the OS running on the A53 cores?

I would help me a lot when these questions gets answered. Because now I'm confused how this all should work. Thx!

[JosephAtNXP · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Thank you for your interest in NXP Semiconductor products

Yes, MCUXpresso is used to handle M-cores and not A ones. I have two useful resources that will get you familiarized with the M-core development.

This is a colleague's thread to a similar question. It's seen that A-cores do need OS and do not support bare-metal, also that MCUXpresso works for M cores but through IAR and ARM's toolchain.

Then, we would move to how A-cores and M-cores get along, I'd begin with AN13400, it's a great example of how peripherals are shared.

Cores are communicated through RPMSG and Remoteproc.

Plus, to get started with MCUXpresso in i.MX processors, IAR and ARM's examples, please refer to the attached guide.

I hope this help,

Regards