This topic helps you setup the development environment for NXP's i.MX RT1050.

Board features

• MIMXRT1052DVL6B MCU featuring 600MHz ARM® Cortex®-M7 core, 512KB RAM
• 4.3” 480x272 RGB Touch Display
• 256-Mbit SDRAM memory
• 512-Mbit Hyper Flash
• 64-Mbit QSPI Flash
• Socket for SD card

Setting up a development environment

Prerequisites

Use the Qt online installer to install the following prerequisites. You can download the installer from your Qt account.

• Qt for MCUs SDK
• Qt Creator v4.12.4 or newer
• CMake 3.15 or newer
• Ninja 1.10.0 or newer

  Note: Ninja is an optional build tool and can be replaced with others like JOM or NMake. It is not needed when using Qt Creator.

• ARM Toolchain 8-2019-q3-update or IAR Build Tools for Arm V8.50, depending on which toolchain you are using
• EVKB-IMXRT1050 SDK 2.7.0 or newer
• NXP MCUXpresso IDE

  Note: MCUXpresso IDE provides the tools for flashing and onboard debugging.

Note: The Qt online installer does not install the MCUXpresso IDE by default. You must select it explicitly from the list of third-party tools and SDKs.

Qt Creator IDE

• Launch Qt Creator and select Tools > Options > Devices > MCU.
• Select one of the targets from the drop-down list for Target supported by the Qt for MCUs SDK:
  • Qt for MCUs 1.7 - MIMXRT1050-EVK-BAREMETAL 16bpp
  • Qt for MCUs 1.7 - MIMXRT1050-EVK-FREERTOS 16bpp
• In the Requirements section, ensure that the platform-specific requirements are met.
• Select Automatically create kits for all available targets on start to create kits automatically.

  Note: You could also manually create/remove kits using Create Kit and Remove Kit.

• Click Apply and restart Qt Creator if you choose to create kits automatically.

Note: The Automatically create kits for all available targets on start option is available from Qt Creator v4.14 onwards. On older versions of Qt Creator, you have to explictly create or remove kits using Create kit or Remove kit.

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.
• Toolchain install path, depending on which toolchain is being used
  • For the armgcc toolchain, set ARMGCC_DIR to the ARM Toolchain install path.

  OR

  • For the IAR toolchain, set IAR_ARM_COMPILER_DIR to the IAR Build Tools 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 EVKB_IMXRT1050_SDK_PATH environment variable and set it to the following path:

  <QT_INSTALL_PATH>\Tools\QtMCUs\NXP\SDK_<version>_IMXRT1050

  where, <QT_INSTALL_PATH> is the Qt install directory.

Flashing the firmware

Flashing and debugging NXP boards requires the board to have the OpenSDA firmware. If an incorrect firmware is flashed, the tools may fail to establish connection with the device.

To check the firmware, connect your device to your development host and open the provided USB storage device. In the DETAILS.TXT file, look for the line starting with "USB Interfaces". It has to list "CDC" and "HID". If these are missing, you are probably using an incorrect firmware.

NXP provides the firmware for download. On the download page, select the type of your type of board and download the "Default firmware application, DAPLink". After flashing this to your board by following the instructions from NXP, the CDC and HID interface should be listed.

Build configuration

Qt Creator provides a build configuration with the kits that you created earlier for the targets. 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 must be set to mimxrt1050-evk-baremetal for this board.

  -DQUL_PLATFORM=mimxrt1050-evk-baremetal

• CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE

  This platform supports the armgcc and IAR toolchains.

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

  OR

  -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=%Qul_DIR%\lib\cmake\Qul\toolchain\iar.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 RT1050 Evaluation Kit board comes with the following prebuilt demos and examples:

• BareMetal
  • thermo
• FreeRTOS
  • thermo

You can find these from demo_images directory.

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

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 watch demo for this board:

cd %Qul_DIR%\demos\watch
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -G "Ninja" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=MinSizeRel -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=%Qul_DIR%\lib\cmake\Qul\toolchain\armgcc.cmake -DQUL_PLATFORM=MIMXRT1050-EVK-baremetal
cmake --build .

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

cmake --build . --target flash_watch

The same procedure applies to any other application.

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 --connect-reset core -p MIMXRT1052xxxxB --ConnectScript RT1050_connect.scp --flash-driver= -x %Qul_DIR%\platform\boards\nxp\mimxrt1050-evk-common\cmake

  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.