i.MX6 - booting from NAND vs NOR Flash

[cstiegman123]

Hello.   We had a customer recently implement an i.MX6 based design that boots from NAND Flash.  Thye found this incredibly difficult and found out afterwards the NXP eval board uses NOR Flash, and that when they searched a Yocto repository, 388 were booting off NOR parts, while only 5 were using NAND, with only one of those 5 trying, apparently unsuccessfully, to boot with NAND!     What is NXP's take and position on this?  If NOR is dominant and appears much easier to implement then why wouldn't NXP perhaps recommend this in a datasheet or somewhere.  Does NXP agree and maintain that booting from NOR (vs NAND) FLash is recommended and preferred?   Thank you.

[hector_delgado]

Hi @cstiegman123 ,

I hope you're doing great and sorry for the late response. NAND is definitely more complex to set up and usually requires certain knowledge to use it successfully, but it pays off by offering storage space up to 512-Mbyte and faster erase, write, and read capabilities over NOR architecture.

NOR is easier to set up but it isn't as good when comparing it to NAND. At the end, it comes down to what the customer is trying to achieve, their knowledge, and their experience with these technologies (as well as investment regarding development time). 

On another note, NAND is a bit outdated to current technologies and not many are being fabricated these days. With this taken into consideration, NAND is almost (if not completely) obsolete because of software incompatibilities. NOR, because of its simpler architecture, has still greater compatibility regarding software. 

Let me know if this was clear enough and if it was of any help.

Best regards,
Hector.