µTasker iMX RT1052 OEM support

Embedded Artists iMX RT1052 OEM

This Embedded Artists OEM board (available for around €20) is based on the MIMXRT1052 and available in industrial and commercial temperature ranges. This 600MHz Cortex-M7 base part has double-precision VFPv5 FPU in MAPBGA196 package. It has 512k of internal RAM, external memory interface, 1 10/100M Ethernet, Dual-high speed USB (with integrated PHY), 8 low power UARTs, 4 I²C controllers, 3 synchronous audio interfaces, 2 SD card interfaces, 2 CAN interfaces, 2 FlexSPI interface (connected to 64MByte Hyper flash), 2 ADC, LCD and touch controller, a True Random Number Generator, plus various other features.

The processor's budget price for 10'000 pieces is $3.13 (low quantity distributor price for 100 pieces under $6), potentially making it very attractive for low cost products requiring connectivity, HDI, high processing performance and audio.

A 24MHz crystal on the board allows for accurate generation of up to 600MHz processor and 480MHz USB clocks.

A 24MHz crystal on the board allows for accurate generation of up to 600MHz processor, 100MHz Ethernet and 480MHz USB clocks.

The µTasker target for the iMX RT1052 OEM allows immediate use of the board for various functions with simple control of performance/consumption as well as the ability to switch operation between this and other i.MX board/processors and Kinetis parts. Accurate simulation of the device in VisualStudio combined with integrated µTasker application functionality ensures reliable, low footprint product development solutions with minimum effort, risk and investment.

Recommendation to Embedded Artists iMX RT1052 OEM users with existing Application Developments nearing Production:

Take a look at the µTasker Boot Loader Concept which is available out-of-the-box for users of the OEM to allow an extremely simple and cost effective path to adding secure, clone protected, in-field updates using various serial loader or OTA techniques. It can work with existing applications from any source which run in XiP, SRAM or internal memory and can take as little a 5 minute of work effort to add such capabilities to the applications, allow them to run in XiP using On-the-Fly decryption without the normally complicated and difficult to manage encryption steps. Go to the i.MX RT Developer's Page for full documentation and videos showing how it works, can be built and how easy and efficient the integration really is!

iMX RT1052 OEM Binaries

Here are some binary files that can be loaded to the board. These were built using the µTasker applications (serial loader and V1.4 application) and can be simply generated using the supported compilers/IDEs [these were built using GCC], built using different configuration options or modified to suit specific requirements or hardware derived from this board :

uTaskerSerialLoader_i.MX-RT1052_OEM_USB-MSD_Kboot-HID_SREC-UART_AES256.bin [44.8k]
HS USB-MSD / KBOOT-HID composite USB bootloader, including SREC UART loader on the board's VCOM UART which can be loaded (copied to its QSPI-Flash) using your favorite loading tool - for example NXP MCUBootUtility.
This boot loader enables uploading applications by one of three methods:
- USB-MSD drag-and-drop onto the external hard drive that appears when the processor's USB is connected to a host PC
- KBOOT-HID (compatible with the NXP protocol and loading tools, such as KinetisFlashTool) via USB-HID
- SREC-UART (connected at 115'200Baud on the board's VCOM UART)
This version of the serial loader supports either AES256 encrypted applications or non-encyrpted ones. In addition the serial loader itself is stored in an AES256 encrypted form in the QSPI flash. The same application, in plain-text and encrypted forms are below, in order to allow testing this.

To force the loader when there is already an application installed, reset the board with the WAKEUP button SW4, held down. When operating, the green LED blinks at 5Hz.
To quit the loader mode to start an installed application the USB-MSD driver can be simply ejected by the host. Alternatively the "go" command can be executed on the LPUART connection.
The serial loaders are described in the µTasker Serial Loader guide

uTaskerV1.4.12_i.MX-RT1052_OEM_USB-SD-Card.bin [63.4k]
This i.MX RT 1052 OEM application shows SD card and USB-MSD / USB-CDC composite operation. It has a command-line menu on LPUART 1 (via the board's virtual COM port connection at 115'200 Baud) or on USB-CDC with utFAT disk interface to control an SD card inserted in the board's socket. The disk interface is accessed via menu item 8 and offers a DOS-like user interface to display directories and files, plus advanced commands to view file details and read/write raw sectors on the disk:

   Disk interface
===================
up           go to main menu
info         utFAT/card info
dir          [path] show directory content
dird         [path] show deleted directory content
dirh         [path] show hidden content
infof        [path] show file info
infod        [path] show deleted info
cd           [path] change dir. (.. for up)
comp         compare [file1] with [file2]
file         [path] new empty file
write        [path] test write to file
mkdir        new empty dir
rename       [from] [to] rename
trunc        truncate to [length] [path]
copy         [file1] to [file2]
hide         [path] file/dir to hide
unhide       [path] file/dir to un-hide
prot         [path] file/dir to write-protect
unprot       [path] file/dir to un-protect
print        [path] print file content
del          [path] delete file or dir.
sect         [hex no.] display sector
sectw        [hex no.] [offset] [val] [cnt]
help         Display menu specific help
quit         Leave command mode

The SD card also appears as an external hard drive to the PC host. A second USB-MSD disk allows the viewing of memory (ITC, DTC and QSPI flash) based on FAT emulation as described in µTasker - FAT emulation

This unencrypted binary file can be loaded after installing the µTasker bootloader (above) via USB-MSD or KBOOT-HID.

uTaskerV1.4.12_i.MX-RT1052_OEM_USB-SD-Card_AES256.bin [63.4k]
This is the same i.MX RT 1052 OEM application but in an AES256 encrypted form. This can also be loaded in the same ways as the un-encrypted one, whereby the boot loader recognised whether it is encrypted or not and handles it accordingly. The encrypted version of the application ensures that it can't be retrieved from the QSPI flash and reverse engineered.
uTaskerV1.4.12_i.MX-RT1052_OEM_USB-SD-Card_AES256.srec [170k] The same application secured with AES256 encryption and in the SREC format. The boot loader automatically recognises that it is encrypted and performs decryption when it relocates it to internal ITC ram when it is executed.
This SREC file can be loader using any terminal emulator connected to the board on LPUART1 at 115'200 Baud
uTaskerV1.4.12_i.MX-RT1052_OEM_USB_SDcard_XiP.bin [64.9k] Similar application (without file system in QSPI Flash) built to run directly from QSPI flash (XiP (eXecute In Place). The boot loader automatically recognises that it should run from flash.
This binary file can be loader by USB-MSD drag-and-drop or by KBOOT HID

Return to the i.MX RT landing page