Support for Arduino's Portenta X8 Hardware

[marshallf]

I'm involved in a research project where it was decided to create custom hardware that utilizes Arduino's Portenta X8 module, which is based on NXP's MIMX8MM6CVTKZAA SoC.

https://docs.arduino.cc/hardware/portenta-x8/ 

Due to project requirements, I can not use Arduino's firmware (nor do I want to). So far I've been able to get a start on creating the mex configuration file using NXP's pin config tool, but this is where I start to become confused on how to proceed.

Question 1: What are my flashing options via JTAG for NXP processors? Does the MCU-Link Debug Probe work with this SoC?

Question 2: Since this isn't an EVK development board, I'm struggling to find support for creating a minimalist Linux build (yocto). What support is there for this? How do I create a fresh Linux based project compatible to run on the portenta X8?

[JosephAtNXP]

Hi,

Thank you for your interest in NXP Semiconductor products,

I just saw that Portenta HW has an additional STM32 that requires a FW which we could not create or flash.

From the other side, if STM32 FW wasn't erased nor updated, you need to port the custom hardware (different DDR, different flash, different interfaces) for BSP layer.

Having a BSP layer, you could create a basic yocto image as imx-image-core provided in our yocto implementation.

Regards,

[marshallf]

I understand that I'm going to have to generate my own solution for flashing the X8's ST MCU from the X8, but I'm not asking about that right now. My questions are:

What debug or programming hardware does NXP provide that will allow me to flash an image to this NXP processor without having an EVK board? For example, will NXP's MCU-Link debug probe work to flash the NXP device?

[JosephAtNXP]

Hi,

No, that'd be a third issue, you can't flash eMMC from JTAG. You must flash the board from Serial Download which may be possible (due to the ANX7625 addition) in USB-C connector.

Otherwise, you could use USB1 from J1 and implement a Serial Download solution as the EVK reference. Please see the attached picture of the reference manual against Portenta BD.

Regards,

[marshallf]

Is there no way to flash an image to internal memory on the MIMX8MM6CVTKZAA? Please forgive me. I'm used to working with microcontrollers over SWD.

[JosephAtNXP · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Don't worry but there is no way.

i.MX processors don't have internal memories because of a normal MPU architecture,

You'd have to write it to eMMC, that's why I said it. It can be easily achieved through Serial Download.

Regards,