Meanwhile I've figured it out how to set the framebuffer in YUV420P mode. It really can't be done from kernel command line, instead one has to use framebuffer IOCTLs.
By the way, YUV420 --> RGB conversion done by IPU in case on HD resolution on iMX53 causes a significant overhead, so I'm searching for a better solution.
if (ioctl(mstate.fb_handle, FBIOGET_VSCREENINFO, &(mstate.fb_vsi)) < 0)
return -1;
mstate.fb_vsi.xres = DISPLAY_RES_X;
mstate.fb_vsi.yres = DISPLAY_RES_Y;
mstate.fb_vsi.xres_virtual = DISPLAY_RES_X;
mstate.fb_vsi.yres_virtual = DISPLAY_RES_Y * 3;
mstate.fb_vsi.activate |= FB_ACTIVATE_FORCE;
mstate.fb_vsi.nonstd = IPU_PIX_FMT_YUV420P;
mstate.fb_vsi.bits_per_pixel = 12;
if (ioctl(mstate.fb_handle, FBIOPUT_VSCREENINFO, &(mstate.fb_vsi)) < 0)
return -1;