Recovery Solution for Bricked i.MX93

[pilotnite]

Hello All,

I'm looking for a recovery solution for a custom board based on i.MX93. We have IoT devices based on i.MX93 with:

- Bootloader: SPI Flash (eFuses burned to boot from SPI only)
- Root filesystem: eMMC

Issue: Customers occasionally brick devices by removing power during bootloader upgrades. When bricked, the i.MX93 automatically enters Serial Download Protocol (SDP) mode and the device shows up as a USB device waiting for UUU commands.

I can successfully recover bricked devices by reflashing the bootloader using:

sudo uuu -b edge-pro.lst imx-boot ahab_bootable_fspi_otfad.bin
sudo uuu FB: acmd reset

This restores the SPI flash bootloader perfectly, but requires on-site technician with a laptop - UUU utility installed and some technical knowledge.

What I'm looking for a "plug-and-play USB recovery solution" where an on-site technician can:

1. Plug a USB flash drive into the bricked i.MX93 device
2. Power on the device
3. USB flash drive automatically runs UUU and restores the bootloader
4. Device reboots and works normally

Basically, a "bootable USB flash drive" that acts as a USB host and automatically executes the UUU recovery process when it detects the i.MX93 in SDP mode.

Questions

1. Is there any way to make a USB flash drive that can act as a USB host and run UUU to recover an i.MX93 in SDP mode?

2. Are there any commercial or DIY solutions that provide automated USB-based recovery for i.MX devices without requiring a laptop?

3. Has anyone created a recovery solution using something like:
-USB flash drive with embedded Linux?
- Small single-board computer (Raspberry Pi Zero, etc.) as a recovery dongle?
-Dedicated recovery hardware?

4. Are there any NXP-provided tools or methods for field recovery that don't require a full laptop setup?

I only need to restore the SPI flash bootloader - the eMMC rootfs is never affected. Since the i.MX93 reliably enters SDP mode when the bootloader is corrupted, we just need something that can automatically run UUU commands.

Any suggestions or pointers to existing solutions would be greatly appreciated!

Environment:
- SoC: NXP i.MX93
- Boot: SPI Flash via FlexSPI (eFuse configured)
- Storage: eMMC
- Recovery tool: UUU (mfgtools)

Thank you,
Nitesh

[joanxie · Accepted solution]

if you don't want to use PC to download image to the board, maybe you can try the board to board download, for example, the imx8mp can support debian, I tested on my imx8mp and imx93 board, it's successful, you can refer to this if this is what you need

1) install the debian on the imx8mp board

i.MX Debian Linux SDK User Guide

2）download  uuu_aarch64 for this system

https://github.com/nxp-imx/mfgtools/releases/tag/uuu_1.5.233

3）need to change the configure files in the uboot

uboot-imx/configs/imx93_11x11_evk_defconfig at lf_v2025.04 · nxp-imx/uboot-imx · GitHub

focus on the "CONFIG_USB_GADGET_VENDOR_NUM" and "CONFIG_USB_GADGET_PRODUCT_NUM"

in my case, I use the   0x18d1 and 0x0d02 according to the table as below

1. Build in config:
2.         Pctl     Chip            Vid     Pid     BcdVersion      Serial_No
3.         ==================================================
4.         SDPS:    MX8QXP          0x1fc9  0x012f  [0x0002..0xffff]
5.         SDPS:    MX8QM           0x1fc9  0x0129  [0x0002..0xffff]
6.         SDPS:    MX8DXL          0x1fc9  0x0147
7.         SDPS:    MX28            0x15a2  0x004f
8.         SDPS:    MX815           0x1fc9  0x013e
9.         SDPS:    MX865           0x1fc9  0x0146
10.         SDPS:    MX8ULP          0x1fc9  0x014a
11.         SDPS:    MX8ULP          0x1fc9  0x014b
12.         SDPS:    MX93            0x1fc9  0x014e
13.         SDPS:    MX91            0x1fc9  0x0159
14.         SDPS:    MX95            0x1fc9  0x015d
15.         SDPS:    MX95            0x1fc9  0x015c
16.         SDPS:    MX943           0x1fc9  0x0027
17.         SDP:     MX7D            0x15a2  0x0076
18.         SDP:     MX6Q            0x15a2  0x0054
19.         SDP:     MX6D            0x15a2  0x0061
20.         SDP:     MX6SL           0x15a2  0x0063
21.         SDP:     MX6SX           0x15a2  0x0071
22.         SDP:     MX6UL           0x15a2  0x007d
23.         SDP:     MX6ULL          0x15a2  0x0080
24.         SDP:     MX6SLL          0x1fc9  0x0128
25.         SDP:     MX7ULP          0x1fc9  0x0126
26.         SDP:     MXRT106X        0x1fc9  0x0135
27.         SDP:     MX8MM           0x1fc9  0x0134
28.         SDP:     MX8MQ           0x1fc9  0x012b
29.         SDPU:    SPL             0x0525  0xb4a4  [0x0000..0x04ff]
30.         SDPV:    SPL1            0x0525  0xb4a4  [0x0500..0x9998]
31.         SDPV:    SPL1            0x1fc9  0x0151  [0x0500..0x9998]
32.         SDPU:    SPL             0x0525  0xb4a4  [0x9999..0x9999]
33.         SDPU:    SPL             0x3016  0x1001  [0x0000..0x04ff]
34.         SDPV:    SPL1            0x3016  0x1001  [0x0500..0x9998]
35.         FBK:                     0x066f  0x9afe
36.         FBK:                     0x066f  0x9bff
37.         FBK:                     0x1fc9  0x0153
38.         FB:                      0x0525  0xa4a5
39.         FB:                      0x18d1  0x0d02
40.         FB:                      0x3016  0x0001
41.         FB:                      0x1fc9  0x0152
42.         FB:                      0x0483  0x0afb

4） build  the new uboot image and put it in the imx8mp board and under the same folder which includes uuu tools

5) then connect imx93 with imx8mp and use the standard uuu command to download uboot to the imx93

of course maybe Raspberry Pi also can support this , but I don't have such board to test, just give you a reference

[pilotnite]

thank you for your feedback... great idea!