Overview

This topic provides all the necessary information to get started on the NXP platforms supported by Qt Quick Ultralite.

Compatible versions

Qt Quick Ultralite for Zephyr® has been tested on Zephyr® 3.6.0, which is the officially supported version for NXP IMXRT1060-EVKB.

Installing prerequisites

Make sure you have all the prerequisites installed before preparing the Zephyr® environment.

NXP i.MX RT1060 EVKB

• Qt Quick Ultralite 2.9.0
• Qt Quick Ultralite NXP i.MX RT1060 EVKB platform package
• NXP i.MX RT1060 EVKB
• RK043FN66HS-CTG
• Zephyr® RTOS 3.6.0
• Either Segger J-Link debug probe or MCUXpresso IDE

NXP i.MX RT1064 EVK

• Qt Quick Ultralite 2.9.0
• Qt Quick Ultralite NXP i.MX RT1064 EVK platform package
• NXP i.MX RT1064 EVK
• RK043FN66HS-CTG
• Zephyr® RTOS 3.6.0
• Either Segger J-Link debug probe or MCUXpresso IDE

Flashing prebuilt binaries

Qt for MCUs offers a selection of prebuilt binaries showing various demos and examples. To flash these, follow the flashing instructions.

Preparing the Zephyr® environment

Setting up Zephyr®

Follow the getting started guide from Zephyr. This will set up the environment for development. You should be able to build and flash the blinky example from the guide.

Setting up the environment

Before building the application, set the following environment variables:

export QUL_ROOT=$HOME/Qt/QtMCUs/2.9.0
export ZEPHYR_DIR=/path/to/zephyrproject

set QUL_ROOT=C:\Qt\QtMCUs\2.9.0
set ZEPHYR_DIR=C:\path\to\zephyrproject

Patching Zephyr®

You need a patch for Zephyr 3.6.0 to compile a Zephyr application using Qt Quick Ultralite. This patch is provided with the Qt Quick Ultralite Zephyr platform port and you can apply it using git am:

cd $ZEPHYR_DIR/zephyr
git am $QUL_ROOT/platform/boards/nxp/common/zephyr/0001-Fix-the-z_impl_k_usleep-argument-type.patch

cd %ZEPHYR_DIR%\zephyr
git am %QUL_ROOT%\platform\boards\nxp\common\zephyr\0001-Fix-the-z_impl_k_usleep-argument-type.patch

Building the application

Exporting the Qt Quick Ultralite application

Export the application code using the qmlprojectexporter:

$QUL_ROOT/bin/qmlprojectexporter \
/path/to/your/project.qmlproject \
--boarddefaults=$QUL_ROOT/platform/boards/nxp/mimxrt1060-evkb-zephyr/cmake/BoardDefaults_16bpp.qmlprojectconfig \
--toolchain GNU \
--platform mimxrt1060-evkb-zephyr \
--outdir /path/to/project_output_dir \
--project-type zephyr \
--generate-entrypoint \
--platform-metadata $QUL_ROOT/platform/boards/nxp/mimxrt1060-evkb-zephyr/mimxrt1060-evkb-zephyr_16bpp_Linux_armgcc-metadata.json

%QUL_ROOT%\bin\qmlprojectexporter ^
C:\path\to\your\project.qmlproject ^
--boarddefaults=%QUL_ROOT%\platform\boards\nxp\mimxrt1060-evkb-zephyr\cmake\BoardDefaults_16bpp.qmlprojectconfig ^
--toolchain GNU ^
--platform mimxrt1060-evkb-zephyr ^
--outdir C:\path\to\project_output_dir ^
--project-type zephyr ^
--generate-entrypoint ^
--platform-metadata %QUL_ROOT%\platform\boards\nxp\mimxrt1060-evkb-zephyr\mimxrt1060-evkb-zephyr_16bpp_Windows_armgcc-metadata.json

If the Qt Quick Ultralite application uses selectors for different variants, the --selector argument needs to be provided to the qmlprojectexporter. For example, the thermo demo can be configured with the following selectors:

--selector normal,small

See the qmlprojectexporter documentation, QmlProject Manual, and Generating projects for Zephyr for more information about qmlprojectexporter, qmlprojects and Zephyr project generation.

Building the Zephyr® application

Activate the Python virtual environment to make the west command available:

source $ZEPHYR_DIR/.venv/bin/activate

%ZEPHYR_DIR%\.venv\Scripts\activate.bat

Make the flashing tool available in the PATH environment variable to enable flashing with west:

export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/flashing_tool

set PATH=%PATH%;C:\path\to\flashing_tool

Build and flash the application:

export ZEPHYR_TOOLCHAIN_VARIANT=gnuarmemb
export GNUARMEMB_TOOLCHAIN_PATH=$HOME/Qt/Tools/QtMCUs/arm_gcc_12_3_1

cd $ZEPHYR_DIR/zephyr
west build -b mimxrt1060_evkb /path/to/project_output_dir
west flash

set ZEPHYR_TOOLCHAIN_VARIANT=gnuarmemb
set GNUARMEMB_TOOLCHAIN_PATH=C:\Qt\Tools\QtMCUs\arm_gcc_12_3_1

cd %ZEPHYR_DIR%\zephyr
west build -b mimxrt1060_evkb C:\path\to\project_output_dir
west flash

Debugging

Zephyr supports debugging with west by either debugging directly or launching a debug server and connecting to it with a debugger. The steps below show how to run a debug server with west and how to connect to it using GNU Project Debugger (GDB).

Make the debug server (such as the J-Link gdbserver) available in the PATH environment variable to enable debugging with west:

export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/debug_server

set PATH=%PATH%;C:\path\to\debug_server

Launch the debug server:

west debugserver

The default debug server sets up a TCP socket listening to port 2331, which you can connect with the GDB in another terminal:

cd $ZEPHYR_DIR/zephyr/build
$GNUARMEMB_TOOLCHAIN_PATH/bin/arm-zephyr-eabi-gdb -tui -ex "target remote localhost:2331" zephyr/zephyr.elf

cd %ZEPHYR_DIR%\zephyr\build
$GNUARMEMB_TOOLCHAIN_PATH\bin\arm-zephyr-eabi-gdb -tui -ex "target remote localhost:2331" zephyr\zephyr.elf

Board-specific information

Tier 1: Reference Targets

Tier 2: Verified Targets

Resource cache policy

By default, an application's resource data is copied to SDRAM on startup. In order to retain these resources in flash and not load them to RAM on startup, add the following QmlProject option to your qmlproject file:

MCU.Config {
    resourceCachePolicy: "NoCaching"
}

Alternatively, it can be enabled only for individual images like this:

ImageFiles {
    files: [
        "big/button.png"
    ]
    MCU.resourceCachePolicy: "NoCaching"
}