Configuring the hardware

The MR-NavQ95 has two types of images that can be flashed separately:

Domain

Description

Guide

Cortex-A Linux image

Full Linux root filesystem written to eMMC or SD card using UUU

Flashing the Cortex-A Linux Image

Cortex-M RTOS firmware

M7 RTOS firmware written to NOR flash using pyOCD

Flashing the Cortex-M RTOS Firmware

The Cortex-A must be flashed first, prior to flashing the Cortex-M.

For boot switch settings and connector locations, see MR-NavQ95 Board Overview.

Flashing the Cortex-A Linux image

This section describes how to flash the Linux image to the MR-NavQ95 eMMC or SD card using the NXP Universal Update Utility (UUU).

For boot switch settings and connector locations, see MR-NavQ95 Board Overview.

Prerequisites

Before flashing, obtain the Linux image as described in Getting the Cortex-A Linux Image.

Steps

1. Download UUU

Download the latest UUU executable from the mfgtools GitHub releases page:

  • Windows: download uuu.exe

  • Linux: download uuu

For convenience, place the UUU executable in the same directory as the .wic image.

2. Prepare the Board

  1. Connect a USB Type-C cable from USB1 (J13) on the MR-NavQ95 to the host PC. J13 is the Serial Download port used by UUU.

  2. Connect a USB Type-C cable from DEBUG USB (J10) on the MR-NavQ95 to the host PC. This exposes two serial consoles, which are needed in step 4 to monitor the boot output.

  3. Set the boot switches to Serial Downloader mode: SW2[1:4] = 1001

  4. Connect a 9–52 V DC power supply to the power input connector J9.

  5. Verify the board is detected by UUU:

    ./uuu -lsusb

    An NXP i.MX95 device should be listed. If the device is not detected, check the USB cable and boot switch settings.

3. Flash the Image

Navigate to the directory containing the .wic image and run UUU:

# Flash to eMMC
./uuu -b emmc_all imx-image-robotics-imx95-navq.rootfs.wic.zst
# OR
# Flash to SD card
./uuu -b sd_all imx-image-robotics-imx95-navq.rootfs.wic.zst

When flashing completes successfully, UUU will print Done and Success 1.

4. Boot the Board

  1. Set the boot switches to match the flashed media:

    • eMMC boot: SW2[1:4] = 0101

    • SD card boot: SW2[1:4] = 1101

  2. The DEBUG USB port exposes two serial consoles — one for the Cortex-A (Linux) and one for the Cortex-M (RTOS). Open both on the host PC at 115200 baud, 8N1.

  3. Power-cycle the board and monitor the boot output in both consoles.

Default Linux login: user / user

Flashing the Cortex-M RTOS firmware

This section describes how to flash the M7 RTOS firmware to NOR flash on the MR-NavQ95 using the NXP-Robotics pyOCD fork.

For boot switch settings and connector locations, see MR-NavQ95 Board Overview.

Prerequisites

  • Cortex-A image: The Cortex-A Linux image must be flashed to the board before flashing the Cortex-M firmware. See Flashing the Cortex-A Linux Image.

  • Host PC: Ubuntu is required to run pyOCD. Other Linux distributions may work but are not tested.

  • JTAG probe: A JTAG debug probe (e.g. NXP MCU-Link or J-Link) must be connected between the host PC and the MR-NavQ95 JTAG connector before flashing.

  • Firmware image: Obtain the RTOS firmware as described in Getting the Cortex-M RTOS Firmware.

Steps

1. Install the pyOCD Fork

The i.MX95 target is not available in mainline pyOCD. Install the NXP-Robotics fork on the host PC:

git clone https://github.com/NXP-Robotics/pyOCD -b pr-imx95 && cd pyOCD

# Option 1: install using python virtual environments. If you choose
# this option, please make sure you always activate the virtual environment
# before trying to use pyOCD!
python3 -m venv .venv
source ./.venv/bin/activate
python3 -m pip install .

# Option 2: install using pipx
sudo apt-get install -y pipx
# you may need to open a new terminal session for this to take effect!
pipx ensurepath
pipx install .

Tested on Python 3.10 (Python 3.9 also works).

2. Prepare the Board

  1. Set the boot switches to the boot mode corresponding to the device where the Cortex-A image was written (eMMC or SD).

  2. Connect a USB Type-C cable from DEBUG USB (J10) on the MR-NavQ95 to the host PC. This exposes two serial consoles - one for Cortex-A, one for Cortex-M.

  3. Connect the JTAG probe between the host PC and the MR-NavQ95 JTAG connector (J7).

  4. Apply 9–52 V DC to the power input connector J9.

  5. Open both serial consoles and wait for the board to reach the Linux login prompt before proceeding.

3. Flash the M7 Image to NOR

Run the following command on the host PC:

pyocd flash -t mimx95_cm7_mx25um --base-address 0x28020000 \
    nxp_imx95_default.mcuboot.bin -f 10m

Parameter

Value

Target

mimx95_cm7_mx25um

NOR base address

0x28020000

Flash clock

10m (10 MHz)

Note: Writing to NOR flash is not fully stable in the current release. Retry the pyocd flash command until pyOCD reports it programmed 0 pages, which confirms the flash contents match the binary.

Note: The flash clock speed can be reduced from 10 MHz down to 4 MHz (4m) if multiple (> 5) failures occur.

Note: In the unlikely event where the flashing fails with flash init timed out [__main__] multiple times, flashing using the CM33 AP may be attempted by following these steps:

  1. Reboot the NavQ95 platform in Serial Downloader Mode, see [Serial Downloader mode (configuring-the-hardware.md#flashing-the-cortex-a-linux-image)]

  2. Write the image to NOR FLASH via the M33 core with pyocd flash -t mimx95_cm33_mx25um --base-address 0x28020000 nxp_imx95_default.mcuboot.bin -f 10m

  3. Apply the same limitations as explained for the the CM7 direct write related to stability

4. Reboot the Board and Open the M7 Console

After reboot, the M7 RTOS shell is accessible from Linux on /dev/ttynsh via the serial console:

picocom /dev/ttynsh