This topic helps you set up the development environment for NXP's i.MX RT1060 Evaluation Kit.

Board features

• MIMXRT1062DVL6A MCU featuring 600MHz ARM® Cortex®-M7 core, 4-MBytes Flash, 1024-kbytes RAM
• 4.3" 480x272 16-bit RGB565 Touch Display
• 256-Mbit SDRAM memory
• 512-Mbit Hyper Flash
• 64-Mbit QSPI Flash
• Socket for SD card

Setting up development environment

• Ensure that the common NXP prerequisites are met
• Install EVK-MIMXRT1060 SDK 2.7.0 or newer (provided by the Qt online installer)

Qt Creator IDE

• Launch Qt Creator and select Tools > Options > Devices > MCU.
• Select the Qt for MCUs 1.3 - MIMXRT1060-EVK from the drop-down list for Target supported by the Qt for MCUs SDK.
• Select Create Kit to create a kit for the selected target. if a kit already exists, remove it first using Remove Kit.
• Click Apply.

Command line setup

To get started from the command line, ensure that the following environment variables are set:

• Qul_DIR to the Qt for MCUs SDK install path.

  <QT_INSTALL_PATH>\QtMCUs\<VERSION>

  where,

  • <QT_INSTALL_PATH> is the Qt install directory,
  • and <VERSION> is the directory containing the Qt Quick Ultralite version you are using, for example 1.1.0.
• ARMGCC_DIR to the ARM Toolchain install path.
• Add the CMake and Ninja tools to your system PATH. If you installed these tools using the Qt online installer, they are installed under <QT_INSTALL_PATH>\Tools.
• MCUXpressoIDE_PATH to your MCUXpresso IDE installation path.
• Create the EVK_MIMXRT1060_SDK_PATH environment variable and set it to the following path:

  <QT_INSTALL_PATH>\Tools\QtMCUs\NXP\SDK_<version>_IMXRT1060

  where, <QT_INSTALL_PATH> is the Qt install directory.

Build configuration

Qt Creator provides a build configuration with the kit that you created created earlier for the Qt for MCUs 1.3 - MIMXRT1060-EVK target. If you are using a command line setup, configure using the following CMake variables. For more information, see the CMake Manual.

• QUL_PLATFORM

  The platform to build for must be set to mimxrt1060-evk for this board.

  -DQUL_PLATFORM=mimxrt1060-evk

• CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE

  This platform supports armgcc compiler.

  -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=%Qul_DIR%\lib\cmake\Qul\toolchain\armgcc.cmake

• QUL_COLOR_DEPTH

  The supported color depth by this platform is 16-bit.

  Note: If this variable is not set, default color depth is used while configuring for the platform.

  -DQUL_COLOR_DEPTH=16

• QUL_COPY_TO_RAM

  By default, the asset data for application is copied to SDRAM on application startup. In order to keep resources in external flash, and not load it to RAM on startup, use the QUL_COPY_TO_RAM CMake option with the value Never when adding assets to the application with qul_add_resource.

Prebuilt demos and examples

The package for NXP i.MX RT1060 Eval Kit board comes with the following prebuilt demos and examples

• BareMetal
  • thermo

You can find it in the demos_images directory.

See the Flashing Instructions for NXP boards section on how to flash the binaries to the board.

Demos and examples source code

Qt for MCUs provides the source code of several demos and examples. You can modify, build, and flash custom binaries onto the target device.

Source code for supported demos and examples is organized in the following directory structure:

• demos
  • automotive
  • motor_cluster
  • thermo
  • watch
• examples
  • charts
  • chess
  • freertos_multitask
  • image_cache
  • interrupt_handler
  • minimal
  • redbutton
  • styling
  • translation

Note: Demos or examples that are highlighted in bold are the only ones supported on this board.

Building applications with prebuilt Qt Quick Ultralite libraries

Qt Creator IDE

Open the CMake project file for the example you want to build and configure it with the kit you created earlier. Once the project is configured, select Run or press Ctrl+r on your keyboard to build and flash the binary to the target.

Command line

The following example builds the thermo demo for this board:

cd %Qul_DIR%\demos\thermo
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -G "Ninja" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=%Qul_DIR%\lib\cmake\Qul\toolchain\armgcc.cmake -DQUL_PLATFORM=MIMXRT1060-EVK
cmake --build .

Once you have successfully built the thermo demo, you can flash it from command line:

cmake --build . --target flash_thermo_small

The same procedure applies to any other application.

Building Qt Quick Ultralite

If your license provides access to the Qt Quick Ultralite sources, build it with all the supported demos/examples. Run the following commands from the terminal window:

cd %Qul_DIR%
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -G "Ninja" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=..\lib\cmake\Qul\toolchain\armgcc.cmake -DQUL_GENERATORS=..\lib\cmake\Qul\QulGenerators.cmake -DQUL_PLATFORM=MIMXRT1060-EVK

Once Qt Quick Ultralite is built successfully, you can flash the supported demos/examples from command line.

cmake --build . --target flash_<DEMO_OR_EXAMPLE_NAME>

where, DEMO_OR_EXAMPLE_NAME is the name of supported demo/example.

Building applications using a custom built Qt Quick Ultralite

This section describes how to build an application, using a custom Qt Quick Ultralite build.

• First, you must set up the development environment as described earlier.
• Build Qt Quick Ultralite from the modified sources and install it to a custom location.

  mkdir some\path\custom_builds\qul
  cd some\path\custom_builds\qul
  
  mkdir qul-build
  cd qul-build
  
  cmake <PATH_TO_INSTALLED_QT_SDK>\QtMCUs\<version> \
        -G "Ninja" \
        -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=some\path\custom_builds\qul \
        -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
        -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=<PATH_TO_INSTALLED_QT_SDK>\QtMCUs\<version>\lib\cmake\Qul\toolchain\armgcc.cmake \
        -DQUL_PLATFORM=<PLATFORM_NAME> \
        -DQUL_BUILD_TESTS=OFF \
        -DQUL_BUILD_DEMOS=OFF \
        -DQUL_BUILD_EXAMPLES=OFF \
        -DQUL_GENERATORS=<PATH_TO_INSTALLED_QT_SDK>\QtMCUs\<version>\lib\cmake\Qul\QulGenerators.cmake \
  
  ninja install

• Use the custom Qt Quick Ultralite to build your application, which is not part of the Qt Quick Ultralite source tree:

  cd some\path\custom_builds
  mkdir app # Put your application here. You can use the redbutton example from the SDK.
  cd app
  mkdir build
  cd build
  
  set QUL_DIR=some\path\custom_builds\qul
  cmake .. \
        -G "Ninja" \
        -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
        -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=some\path\custom_builds\qul\lib\cmake\Qul\toolchain\armgcc.cmake \
        -DQUL_GENERATORS=<PATH_TO_INSTALLED_QT_SDK>\QtMCUs\<version>\lib\cmake\Qul\QulGenerators.cmake \
        -DQUL_PLATFORM=<PLATFORM_NAME> \
  
  ninja
  ninja flash_<YOUR_APP_NAME>

Reading debug messages

By default, the output of printf calls are redirected to a virtual serial port, which is exposed on the host machine via USB.

Debugging

• For convenience, you can set an environment variable that points to the Redlink tool, which is part of the MCUXpresso IDE.

  set REDLINK=%MCUXpressoIDE_PATH%\ide\binaries\crt_emu_cm_redlink

  Where, %MCUXpressoIDE_PATH% is an environment variable pointing to the MCUXpresso IDE installation directory.

• Open a terminal window and run the following command:

  %REDLINK% --server :50032 --mi -2 -vc -p MIMXRT1062xxxxA --ConnectScript RT1060_connect.scp --flash-driver= -x %Qul_DIR%\lib\cmake\Qul\boards\nxp\mimxrt1060-evk

  GDB Server is now listening for TCP connections on port, 50032.

  Note: To change TCP port used by redlink_server, change --server :50032 to different value.

• Run arm-none-eabi-gdb in a separate console

  %ARMGCC_DIR%\bin\arm-none-eabi-gdb.exe <PATH_TO>\your_app.elf

• Connect to the target via the gdbserver in the arm-none-eabi-gdb console using

  (gdb) target remote :50032

Known issues

• The interrupted program does not resume its execution while debugging. It must be restarted using the mon reset halt command.