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Hands-on with NXP’s MCX FRDM Boards - Workbench Wednesdays 84

NXP's MCX Microcontrollers are their latest generation. They combine the best aspects of the previous LPC and Kinetis series products with a look to future applications. There are four processors in the family. In January 2024, they began shipping (in quantity) two of the microcontrollers along with development boards in the Freedom Platform, also known as FRDM. 

Watch the Video:

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The MCX A is a general-purpose, entry-level microcontroller. It is single-core and runs up to 96 Megahertz. As an entry-level microcontroller, it has a full complement of typical peripherals like timers, counters, SPI, UART, and full-speed USB. 

On the other end of the spectrum is the MCX N. It is a dual-core microcontroller (150 MHz) with an optional neural processing unit (NPU). It has advanced security features and faster IO. For example, it has ethernet, FlexIO (LCD), and Smart SMA (Camera) capabilities. 

Both microcontrollers support I3C. This newer serial protocol supersedes and is backward compatible with I2C. It offers several feature benefits and a higher data rate option. 

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NXP also offers new development boards to complement their latest processors. The FRDM form factor is an inexpensive dev board with an on-board debugger, various connectors, and the top-of-the-line MCX A or MCX N. 

Both boards have FRDM, Arduino-style Shield, microBUS, and Pmod headers. (The Pmod header is not populated on either board.) The FRDM MCX N adds headers for FlexIO and Smart SMA to add cameras and displays. The MCX N board also has an unpopulated footprint for a MicroSD card socket and a capacitive touch sensor. 

You can program the boards using NXP's Eclipse-based MCU Xpresso IDE, VSCode (via extensions), or other third-party development tools. In this video, James used VSCode. However, he ran into a few setup issues related to path statements. For example, the installer that handles dependencies would report versions of applications in the path statement, not the ones it installed. 

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There are three ways to address this minor issue. The first is to install the version it wants, change the priority of statements in your environmental path, or remove the tool from your path. In the case of cmake.exe, James decided to remove CMAKE from the path. Another issue came up with nmake.exe. For some reason, VSCode was not able to locate it. Find nmake.exe on your system and add it to the Environment's PATH statement to fix this. 

The MCUXpresso SDK has various examples for the FRDM MCX A and FRDM MCX N. James tried out "Hello World" and "Blink" on both boards. On the MCX A, he also loaded an example of an I3C temperature sensor. On the MCX N, James looked at the touch sensor example since that board has a capacitive touch sensor available. 

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Overall, the boards have good build quality, an onboard debugger, and the flexibility to support several ecosystems of add-ons. Also, prices in the $15 to $25 range make these an affordable addition to any electronics kit. 

Downloads & Links:

Bill of Material:

Product Name Manufacturer Quantity Buy Kit
FRDM-MCXA153 NXP 1 Buy Now
FRDM-MCXN947 NXP 1 Buy Now
 

  • Nice video. The toolchain installation trouble reminds me of another chip vendor in-person seminar I attended, where even if the participants used their own IDE, one PATH variable had to be added to make the project to compile. I told the presenters this is not the way to go on Windows with it's classic Next>Next>Finish approach. First, they didn't want to hear it, but after helping other 20 people they realized that.

  • in reply to rsjawale24

    Agreed.

    I will be blunt.

    If I were not purposely making a video about these boards, they would have ended up in my "random dev board box."

    The MCX line of processors seemed interesting. However, the sheer amount of (fruitless) effort required to do anything remotely interesting with them means I probably won't even consider them or a real product/project in the future.

  • in reply to misaz

    I think the beginner work, to install proper toolchains, relative path for compilers,etc is what keeps most people away from these boards

  • Everytime I hear freedom, open or modern when vendor describe their SDK I assueme that it is dependecy-hell mess which destroy all my installed toolchains on computer. While compilation for (ARM) MCUs is straitforward and easy, almost every vendor patch standard workflow with ton of proprietry stuff, scripts, questionable executable tools, hundreds-line long linker scripts which nobody know where they are, super smart (crazy) Makefiles, tons of useless cmake configs full of conditionals, ... Tool for installing other tools (required because nobody is capable of installing such mess manually) is just a cherry on the cake.

    In work we always make our simple Makefile, and simple linker script and ingnore most of the vendor stuff, code generators, and so on. It is muzch more work at begining, but it worthg it.

  • Of course, NXP announced the release of the MCX-W and companion FRDM board while I was editing this one! That chip adds a 2.4 GHz radio and dedicated Cortex-M3 for network operations.