Getting Started with the NXP FRDM i.MX 93 Development Board

Previously, we explored the capabilities of NXP’s FRDM development series—flexible, low-cost platforms built for rapid prototyping.

In this project, we’re diving into the FRDM-i.MX93 Development Board—getting hands-on with setup, booting Linux, and exploring the powerful i.MX 93 applications processor.

1. First Boot: What’s in the Box?

Here’s what you’ll find in the kit:

• NXP FRDM i.MX 93 Development Board (030-9806)
• USB 2.0 cable (Type-C to Type-A)
• Quick Start Guide

For a visual guide, check out our unboxing video:

1.1 Get to Know Your Board

Before doing anything else, take a few minutes to familiarise yourself with the layout, key components, and connectors.

1.2 Booting from eMMC

Your board ships with a pre-built Linux image flashed to eMMC. Without modifying it, you’ll boot into a standard NXP Embedded Linux environment—perfect for testing hardware and building on top of Linux.

1.3 Debug Console Setup

• Connect the USB Type-C cable to P16 (debug UART port).
• Plug the other end into your host machine.

Your PC will recognise two UART connections—one for the Cortex-A55 core and the other for the Cortex-M33 core.

Tip: New to terminal tools? Check out these quick guides:

• Linux Debug Terminal
• Windows Debug Terminal

If you’re on Linux, ensure the CH342F driver is installed.

1.4 Hook Up HDMI

To access the GUI included in the image, connect a monitor via the HDMI port P5.

1.5 Boot Switch Configuration

See the table below to configure accordingly:

1.6 Power On

Plug the power cable into connector P1. You’ll see U-Boot messages on the Cortex-A55 console.

Unless interrupted, the board will proceed to boot Linux.

A successful boot shows:

• Two penguins in the top-left corner of the display
• A Linux terminal icon (left) and timer (top-right)

You're now up and running!

1.7 Enable Connectivity Features

Login as user "root" (no password). Load Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 802.15.4 drivers with the following command:

root@imx93frdm:~# modprobe moal mod_para=nxp/wifi_mod_para.conf
root@imx93frdm:~# ifconfig mlan0 up
root@imx93frdm:~# modprobe btnxpuart
root@imx93frdm:~# hciconfig hci0 reset 

2. Get the Software

The i.MX Linux Board Support Package (BSP) provides everything you need to boot Embedded Linux on the FRDM-IMX93: binaries, sources, and support files.

• Download pre-built images from the official board page.
• Additional documentation is in the i.MX Linux documentation bundle.

2.1 Supported Boot Media

FRDM-IMX93 supports both eMMC and SD card boot. This guide focuses on SD card flashing.

2.2 Download Pre-Built Images

You can start right away using the latest NXP Linux demo image—ready to test hardware interfaces and run user applications without rebuilding anything.

2.3 Flashing the Image with UUU (Universal Update Utility)

You'll need to set the board to serial download mode:

1. Connect USB1 (P2) to your host.
2. Disconnect power (refer to section 1.5 for more details).
3. Configure boot switches for SDP mode.
4. Reconnect power.

Flashing on Linux

You'll need to download the latest stable files from the UUU GitHub page. A more in-depth tutorial on UUU is available here.

• uuu
• libuxb1

By default, this procedure flashes the image to the SD card. Check the UUU GitHub page for reference on how to flash the image to other devices.

Open a terminal application and change the directory to the location where uuu and the latest Linux distribution for FRDM-IMX93 are located. Add execution permission to the uuu file and execute it. uuu will wait for the USB device to connect.

$ chmod a+x uuu
$ sudo ./uuu -b sd_all imx-image-full-imx93frdm.rootfs.wic.zst

Confirm FRDM-IMX93 boot mode is switched to serial download mode, and turn on the board, uuu will start to flash the images to the SD card.

When it finishes, turn off the board and the terminal.

Flashing on Windows

You'll need to download the latest stable files from the UUU GitHub page. A more in-depth tutorial on UUU is available here.

• uuu.exe
• Serial USB drivers

By default, this procedure flashes the image to the SD card. Check the UUU GitHub page for reference on how to flash the image to other devices.

Open the command prompt application and navigate to the directory where the uuu.exe file and the Linux release for the FRDM-IMX93 are located.

uuu.exe -b sd_all imx-image-full-imx93frdm.rootfs.wic.zst

Confirm FRDM-IMX93 boot mode is switched to serial download mode, and turn on the board, uuu will start to copy the images to the board.

When it finishes, turn off the board and the command prompt application.

3. Building from Source

Beyond out-of-the-box use, the FRDM i.MX 93 supports custom builds using Yocto Project or Debian.

3.1 Building Yocto BSP

Based on Yocto Project 5.0 (Scarthgap) and the i.MX SW 2024 Q3 release, you can build your own image from source.

See the Yocto User Guide for prerequisites and step-by-step instructions.

• Download i.MX SW 2024 Q3 BSP Release:

$ repo init -u https://github.com/nxp-imx/imx-manifest -b imx-linux-scarthgap -m imx-6.6.36-2.1.0.xml 
$ repo sync 

• Integrate FRDM-MX93 layer into Yocto code base:

$ cd ${MY_YOCTO}/sources
$ git clone https://github.com/nxp-imx-support/meta-imx-frdm.git

• Yocto Project Setup:

$ MACHINE=imx93frdm DISTRO=fsl-imx-xwayland source sources/meta-imx-frdm/tools/imx-frdm-setup.sh -b frdm-imx93

• Build images:

$ bitbake imx-image-full

• Flashing SD card image:

$ zstdcat imx-image-full-imx93frdm.rootfs.wic.zst | sudo dd of=/dev/sdx bs=1M && sync

• Or using uuu to burn image into SD card:

$ uuu -b sd_all imx-image-full-imx93frdm.rootfs.wic.zst

• Change boot switch SW1 to “0011” to select SD card boot, insert the SD card and power up the FRDM-IMX93 board.

3.2 Matter Support

To add Matter protocol support (for smart home and IoT devices), include the Matter layer in your Yocto build.

• Download i.MX SW 2024 Q3 BSP Release:

$ repo init -u https://github.com/nxp-imx/imx-manifest -b imx-linux-scarthgap -m imx-6.6.36-2.1.0.xml
$ repo sync 

• Download i.MX Matter Yocto layer:

$ cd ${MY_YOCTO}/sources/meta-nxp-connectivity
$ git remote update
$ git checkout imx_matter_2024_q3

• Integrate FRDM-MX93 layer into Yocto code base:

$ cd ${MY_YOCTO}/sources
$ git clone https://github.com/nxp-imx-support/meta-imx-frdm.git

• Yocto Project Setup:

$ MACHINE=imx93frdm-iwxxx-matter DISTRO=fsl-imx-xwayland source sources/meta-imx-frdm/tools/imx-frdm-matter-setup.sh bld-xwayland-imx93

• Build images:

$ bitbake imx-image-multimedia

3.3 Debian Support

The FRDM i.MX 93 board is fully compatible with Debian 12, leveraging the i.MX Debian Linux SDK distribution. This SDK combines NXP’s optimized Linux kernel and boot loaders with a Debian user-space image, providing a comprehensive development environment that includes:

• Debian-based root filesystem (rootfs)
• Debian Base (core system packages)
• Debian Server (expanded package set without a GUI)
• Debian Desktop (full GNOME desktop environment)
• Linux kernel tailored for i.MX93
• Board Support Package (BSP) components
• A wide range of applications spanning graphics, multimedia, networking, connectivity, security, and AI/ML

For complete details on the NXP Debian Linux SDK Distribution for i.MX and Layerscape platforms, please visit the official NXP Debian Linux SDK Distribution page.

Quick Start with Debian

To create an SD card with Debian for FRDM-IMX93, please follow below steps.

• Download flex-installer on the Linux host

$ wget http://www.nxp.com/lgfiles/sdk/lsdk2412/flex-installer
$ chmod +x flex-installer
$ sudo mv flex-installer /usr/bin

• Plug the SD card into the Linux host and install the images as below

# format SD card
$ flex-installer -i pf -d /dev/sdb
# automatically download and install images into SD card
$ flex-installer -i auto -d /dev/mmcblk1 -m imx93frdm

Plug the SD card into the FRDM-IMX93 board and install the extra packages as below

• Setup Ethernet network interface by DHCP or setting it manually

$ dhclient -i end0

• Set correct system time, for example

$ date -s "02 Jun 2025 09:00:00"

• Install extra packages for GNOME GUI Desktop version

$ debian-post-install-pkg desktop

• Or install extra packages for Server version without GUI Desktop

$ debian-post-install-pkg server

• After finishing the installation, run the reboot command to boot up the Debian Desktop/Server system

Building Debian Images with Flexbuild

To build Debian image with Flexbuild, please follow the below steps:

• Set up the build environment

$ git clone https://github.com/nxp/flexbuild
$ cd flexbuild && source setup.env
#Continue to run commands below in case you need to build in Docker due to lack of Ubuntu 22.04 or Debian 12 host
$ bld docker
$ source setup.env

• Build image with Flexbuild

$ bld -m imx93frdm

• Flexbuild usage:
  To build individual part of the image, please check below command list for Flexbuild usage

$ bld uboot -m imx93frdm (compile u-boot image for imx93frdm)
$ bld linux (compile linux kernel for all arm64 i.MX machines)
$ bld bsp -m imx93frdm (generate BSP firmware)
$ bld boot (generate boot partition tarball including kernel, dtb, modules, distro bootscript for iMX machines)
$ bld multimedia (build multimedia components for i.MX platforms)
$ bld rfs -r debian:server (generate Debian server rootfs)
$ bld apps -r debian:server (compile apps against runtime dependencies of Debian server RootFS)
$ bld merge-apps -r debian:server (merge iMX-specific apps into target Debian server RootFS)
$ bld packrfs -r debian:server (pack and compress target debian server rootfs)

4. Developer Tools and Demos

FRDM i.MX 93 comes with sample applications and dev tools to jumpstart your projects—especially for ML and vision tasks via the onboard NPU.

Featured Applications:

• Image Classification
• Object Detection
• Selfie Segmenter
• i.MX Smart Fitness
• Driver Monitoring (DMS)
• ML Benchmark Tool
• Video Test Tool
• i.MX Smart Kitchen
• i.MX E-Bike VIT

4.1 Application Code Hub (ACH)

ACH is NXP’s portal for code examples and application packs. It features search and filtering tools to locate relevant content fast.

Each example includes a GitHub link for easy cloning.

4.2 GoPoint Application Launcher

GoPoint is a GUI launcher that provides instant access to bundled demos right after boot.

To launch:

• Boot the board and click the NXP logo (top left)

• Browse available applications
• Click “Launch Demo” to start, or “Stop Current Demo” to exit

For details, see the GoPoint User Guide.

Ready to Explore More?

Congratulations on setting up your NXP FRDM i.MX 93 Development Board (030-9806) .

You’re now ready to explore the full potential of this powerful platform. To dive deeper, discover additional resources, and find the perfect development kits tailored to your projects, be sure to visit our Development Kits Hub.

For more information about NXP products and to stay up-to-date with the latest from the NXP brand on RS, check out our dedicated NXP page.

Happy developing!