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:
IAR Embedded Workbench for Arm, version is 9.60.3
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 |
|---|---|
MCIMX93-EVK |
MIMX9352AVTXM, MIMX9352CVVXM, MIMX9352DVVXM, |
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.
VoiceSpot
VoiceSpot is a highly accurate, small memory and MIPS profile wake word engine supporting custom voice trigger words and phrases. MCUXpresso SDK version of VoiceSpot is trained to “Hey NXP” wake word only and has 25 hour trial timeout.
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).
TinyCBOR
Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR) Library
PKCS#11
The PKCS#11 standard specifies an application programming interface (API), called “Cryptoki,” for devices that hold cryptographic information and perform cryptographic functions. Cryptoki follows a simple object based approach, addressing the goals of technology independence (any kind of device) and resource sharing (multiple applications accessing multiple devices), presenting to applications a common, logical view of the device called a “cryptographic token”.
Multicore
Multicore Software Development Kit
lwIP
The lwIP TCP/IP stack is pre-integrated with MCUXpresso SDK and runs on top of the MCUXpresso SDK Ethernet driver with Ethernet-capable devices/boards.
For details, see the lwIP TCPIP Stack and MCUXpresso SDK Integration User’s Guide (document MCUXSDKLWIPUG).
lwIP is a small independent implementation of the TCP/IP protocol suite.
llhttp
HTTP parser llhttp
FreeMASTER
FreeMASTER communication driver for 32-bit platforms.
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.
SEGGER J-Link debugger usage problem
When an M core software is already running, it is possible to get HardFault or data verification issue during loading image into TCM by debugger.
The following steps are recommended to use the J-Link debugger.
Configure switch SW1301 to M core boot; low-power boot. Ensure that there is no image on the boot source.
Power the board and start the debugger for use.
To restart the debugger, stop the debugger, power off the board, and repeat step 2.
eDMA examples accessing AIPS peripheral bridge memory must run through U-Boot loading method
Non-secure access to Arm IP Bus (AIPS) must be configured in Trusted Resource Domain Control (TRDC) for enhanced direct memory access (eDMA) controller. Due to the limitation that Sentinel ROM can release TRDC only once, such examples must run through U-Boot loading method after Trusted Firmware-A (TF-A） configuring TRDC.
To make low-power boot mode work for only M core in such example, you need to implement the request of the TRDC release and configure TRDC. However, it will break the single boot mode with TF-A/Linux BSP.
The following eDMA examples need access to AIPS.
cmsis_lpi2c_edma_b2b_transfer_master
cmsis_lpi2c_edma_b2b_transfer_slave
cmsis_lpuart_edma_transfer
flexcan_loopback_edma_transfer
lpi2c_edma_b2b_transfer_master
lpi2c_edma_b2b_transfer_slave
lpuart_edma_transfer
pdm_edma_transfer
sai_edma_transfer
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.