MCUXpresso SDK Release Notes

Overview

The MCUXpresso SDK is a comprehensive software enablement package designed to simplify and accelerate application development with Arm Cortex-M-based devices from NXP, including its general purpose, crossover and Bluetooth-enabled MCUs. MCUXpresso SW and Tools for DSC further extends the SDK support to current 32-bit Digital Signal Controllers. The MCUXpresso SDK includes production-grade software with integrated RTOS (optional), integrated enabling software technologies (stacks and middleware), reference software, and more.

In addition to working seamlessly with the MCUXpresso IDE, the MCUXpresso SDK also supports and provides example projects for various toolchains. The Development tools chapter in the associated Release Notes provides details about toolchain support for your board. Support for the MCUXpresso Config Tools allows easy cloning of existing SDK examples and demos, allowing users to leverage the existing software examples provided by the SDK for their own projects.

Underscoring our commitment to high quality, the MCUXpresso SDK is MISRA compliant and checked with Coverity static analysis tools. For details on MCUXpresso SDK, see MCUXpresso-SDK: Software Development Kit for MCUXpresso.

MCUXpresso SDK

As part of the MCUXpresso software and tools, MCUXpresso SDK is the evolution of Kinetis SDK, includes support for LPC, DSC,PN76, and i.MX System-on-Chip (SoC). The same drivers, APIs, and middleware are still available with support for Kinetis, LPC, DSC, and i.MX silicon. The MCUXpresso SDK adds support for the MCUXpresso IDE, an Eclipse-based toolchain that works with all MCUXpresso SDKs. Easily import your SDK into the new toolchain to access to all of the available components, examples, and demos for your target silicon. In addition to the MCUXpresso IDE, support for the MCUXpresso Config Tools allows easy cloning of existing SDK examples and demos, allowing users to leverage the existing software examples provided by the SDK for their own projects.

In order to maintain compatibility with legacy Freescale code, the filenames and source code in MCUXpresso SDK containing the legacy Freescale prefix FSL has been left as is. The FSL prefix has been redefined as the NXP Foundation Software Library.

Development tools

The MCUXpresso SDK is compiled and tested with these development tools:

MCUXpresso IDE, Rev. 24.12

IAR Embedded Workbench for Arm, version is 9.60.3

Keil MDK, version is 5.41

MCUXpresso for VS Code v24.12
GCC Arm Embedded Toolchain 13.2.1

Supported development systems

This release supports board and devices listed in following table. The board and devices in bold were tested in this release.

Development boards	MCU devices
FRDM-MCXN236	MCXN235VDF, MCXN235VKL, MCXN235VNL, MCXN235VPB, MCXN236VDF, MCXN236VKL, MCXN236VNL, MCXN236VPB

MCUXpresso SDK release package

The MCUXpresso SDK release package content is aligned with the silicon subfamily it supports. This includes the boards, CMSIS, devices, middleware, and RTOS support.

Device support

The device folder contains the whole software enablement available for the specific System-on-Chip (SoC) subfamily. This folder includes clock-specific implementation, device register header files, device register feature header files, and the system configuration source files. Included with the standard SoC support are folders containing peripheral drivers, toolchain support, and a standard debug console. The device-specific header files provide a direct access to the microcontroller peripheral registers. The device header file provides an overall SoC memory mapped register definition. The folder also includes the feature header file for each peripheral on the microcontroller. The toolchain folder contains the startup code and linker files for each supported toolchain. The startup code efficiently transfers the code execution to the main() function.

Board support

The boards folder provides the board-specific demo applications, driver examples, and middleware examples.

Demo application and other examples

The demo applications demonstrate the usage of the peripheral drivers to achieve a system level solution. Each demo application contains a readme file that describes the operation of the demo and required setup steps. The driver examples demonstrate the capabilities of the peripheral drivers. Each example implements a common use case to help demonstrate the driver functionality.

RTOS

FreeRTOS

Real-time operating system for microcontrollers from Amazon

Middleware

CMSIS DSP Library

The MCUXpresso SDK is shipped with the standard CMSIS development pack, including the prebuilt libraries.

USB Type-C PD Stack

See the MCUXpresso SDK USB Type-C PD Stack User’s Guide (document MCUXSDKUSBPDUG) for more information

USB Host, Device, OTG Stack

See the MCUXpresso SDK USB Stack User’s Guide (document MCUXSDKUSBSUG) for more information.

TF-M

Trusted Firmware - M Library

PSA Test Suite

Arm Platform Security Architecture Test Suite

Mbed Crypto

Mbed Crypto library

Motor Control Software (ACIM, BLDC, PMSM)

Motor control examples.

Multicore

Multicore Software Development Kit

mbedTLS

mbedtls SSL/TLS library v3.x

mbedTLS

mbedtls SSL/TLS library v2.x

Voice Seeker (no AEC)

VoiceSeeker is a multi-microphone voice control audio front-end signal processing solution. VoiceSeeker is not featuring acoustic echo cancellation (AEC).

Audio Voice components

Audio Voice components for MCU

Maestro Audio Framework for MCU

Maestro Audio Framework library for MCU

LVGL

LVGL Open Source Graphics Library

LittleFS

LittleFS filesystem stack

FreeMASTER

FreeMASTER communication driver for 32-bit platforms.

File systemFatfs

The FatFs file system is integrated with the MCUXpresso SDK and can be used to access either the SD card or the USB memory stick when the SD card driver or the USB Mass Storage Device class implementation is used.

emWin

The MCUXpresso SDK is pre-integrated with the SEGGER emWin GUI middleware. The AppWizard provides developers and designers with a flexible tool to create stunning user interface applications, without writing any code.

NXP PSA CRYPTO DRIVER

PSA crypto driver for crypto library integration via driver wrappers

NXP ELS PKC

ELS PKC crypto library

Release contents

Provides an overview of the MCUXpresso SDK release package contents and locations.

Deliverable	Location
Boards	INSTALL_DIR/boards
Demo Applications	INSTALL_DIR/boards/<board_name>/demo_apps
Driver Examples	INSTALL_DIR/boards/<board_name>/driver_examples
eIQ examples	INSTALL_DIR/boards/<board_name>/eiq_examples
Board Project Template for MCUXpresso IDE NPW	INSTALL_DIR/boards/<board_name>/project_template
Driver, SoC header files, extension header files and feature header files, utilities	INSTALL_DIR/devices/<device_name>
CMSIS drivers	INSTALL_DIR/devices/<device_name>/cmsis_drivers
Peripheral drivers	INSTALL_DIR/devices/<device_name>/drivers
Toolchain linker files and startup code	INSTALL_DIR/devices/<device_name>/<toolchain_name>
Utilities such as debug console	INSTALL_DIR/devices/<device_name>/utilities
Device Project Template for MCUXpresso IDE NPW	INSTALL_DIR/devices/<device_name>/project_template
CMSIS Arm Cortex-M header files, DSP library source	INSTALL_DIR/CMSIS
Components and board device drivers	INSTALL_DIR/components
RTOS	INSTALL_DIR/rtos
Release Notes, Getting Started Document and other documents	INSTALL_DIR/docs
Tools such as shared cmake files	INSTALL_DIR/tools
Middleware	INSTALL_DIR/middleware

Known Issues

This section lists the known issues, limitations, and/or workarounds.

Cannot add SDK components into FreeRTOS projects

It is not possible to add any SDK components into FreeRTOS project using the MCUXpresso IDE New Project wizard.

Bluetooth LE link layer known issues/limitations

The known issues/limitations of the Bluetooth LE link layer include:

Only one connection is supported.
Only one advertising set is supported.
Only one periodic advertising is supported.

FRDM-MCXN236 board audio rework issue

If a user needs to run audio cases, he needs to manually rework audio codec and jack.

Examples hello_world_ns, secure_faults_ns, and secure_faults_trdc_ns have incorrect library path in GUI projects

When the affected examples are generated as GUI projects, the library linking the secure and non-secure worlds has an incorrect path set. This causes linking errors during project compilation.

Examples: hello_world_ns, hello_world_s, secure_faults_ns, secure_faults_s, secure_faults_trdc_ns, secure_faults_trdc_s

Affected toolchains: mdk, iar

Workaround: In the IDE project settings for the non-secure (_ns) project, find the linked library (named hello_world_s_CMSE_lib.o, or similar, depending on the example project) and replace the path to the library with <build_directory>/<secure_world_project_folder>/<IDE>/, replacing the subdirectory names with the build directory, the secure world project name, and IDE name.

Max Blob Size limitation on N11

The Maximum blob size is limited to 2783 bytes instead of 8K bytes for el2go blobs.

Examples: el2go_blob_test_s, el2go_blob_test_ns

Affected toolchains: All