UUU - Universal Update Utility

The Universal Update Utility is used to program your board. It repaces NXP’s “MFG-Tool”. We actually use uuu to flash our TX8M module series. For everything below (TX6 and TXUL series) please continue to use MFG-Tool.

Getting uuu

Get the latest stable files uuu (for Linux), uuu.exe and libusb-1.0.dll (both for Windows) from NXP’s official repository: https://github.com/NXPmicro/mfgtools/releases

Usage

UUU uses the android fastboot protocol. The usual way to flash our modules is to start the mfg-uboot, write the default u-boot into eMMC and then flash the Boot-partition and Rootfs as filesystem image.

Tip

You can use pre-compiled images and scripts from our Customer Area or your own Yocto built images.

Running uuu

On Windows 10 or Linux uuu will work fine. For Windows 7 see Running UUU on Windows 7.

  1. Put the bootmode jumper in place (for Help see Enabling USB-Bootmode) and connect your module via OTG-programming port of the baseboard.
  2. Get terminal access. If you need help for this see TTL Converter Terminal Connection.
  1. Open a command line inside the folder where uuu is and run the following command to use the before created script:
uuu -v <script-file>

Tip

Inside your terminal you should now see progress and information while uuu is programming your module.

UUU with Custom Files

Creating Filesystems

For e.g. the /boot partition it is necessary to create your own filesystem image. The example below gives you an idea how this is done.

Create an empty image, mount it, and put the files inside you need.

dd if=/dev/zero of=bootfs.fat bs=1M count=0 seek=32
mkfs -t vfat bootfs.fat
sudo mount -o loop bootfs.fat /mnt/temp/
sudo cp Image imx8mn-tx8m-nd00-mipi-mb.dtb /mnt/temp/
sudo umount /mnt/temp

Script Examples [1]

Hint

Some commands differ depending on the module you are using.

Module Loading bootloader command-set Comments
tx8m-1610 
SDP: boot -f <mfg-uboot>
SDPV: write -f <mfg-boot> -offset 0x57c00
SDPV: jump
 
tx8m-1620 
SDP: boot -f <mfg-uboot>
SDPV: write -f <mfg-boot> -offset 0x57c00
SDPV: jump
 
tx8m-nd00 
SDPS: boot -f <mfg-uboot>
SDPV: write -f <mfg-boot> -offset 0x57c00
SDPV: jump
UUU has a problem recognizig the device at the first start - you will see an error. After this just run uuu -v again and it will work. You can also start uuu in Daemon mode uuu -v -d to prevent this.
tx8p-ml81 
SDPS: boot -f <mfg-uboot>
 
qsxp-ml81 
SDPS: boot -f <mfg-uboot>
 
qsxm-mm60 
SDP: boot -f <mfg-uboot>
SDPV: write -f <mfg-boot> -offset 0x57c00
SDPV: jump
 
qs8m-mq00 
SDP: boot -f <mfg-uboot>
SDPV: write -f <mfg-boot> -offset 0x57c00
SDPV: jump
 
qs8m-nd00 
SDPS: boot -f <mfg-uboot>
SDPV: write -f <mfg-boot> -offset 0x57c00
SDPV: jump
UUU has a problem recognizig the device at the first start - you will see an error. After this just run uuu -v again and it will work. You can also start uuu in Daemon mode uuu -v -d to prevent this.

Flashing U-Boot to eMMC

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
uuu_version 1.0.1

#
# author: Markus Bauer <mb@karo-electronics.de>
# (c) 2019
#
# This file flashes default u-boot to your TX8M

### boot uboot with fastboot support
SDPS: boot -f imx-boot-tx8m-nd00-mipi-mb-mfg.bin-flash_tx8m
SDPV: delay 1000
SDPV: write -f imx-boot-tx8m-nd00-mipi-mb-mfg.bin-flash_tx8m -offset 0x57c00
SDPV: jump

### Writing default u-boot to emmc
FB: ucmd setenv emmc_dev 0
FB: ucmd setenv fastboot_dev mmc
FB: ucmd setenv mmcdev ${emmc_dev}
FB: ucmd mmc dev ${emmc_dev}
FB: flash bootloader imx-boot-tx8m-nd00-mipi-mb-default.bin-flash_tx8m
FB: ucmd mmc partconf ${emmc_dev} 1 1 0

FB: done

Flashing filesystems

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
uuu_version 1.0.1

#
# author: Markus Bauer <mb@karo-electronics.de>
# (c) 2019
#
# This file flashes desktop release (QT from Yocto) and bootfs to your TX8M

### Boot our uboot with fastboot support
SDPS: boot -f imx-boot-tx8m-nd00-mipi-mb-mfg.bin-flash_tx8m
SDPV: delay 1000
SDPV: write -f imx-boot-tx8m-nd00-mipi-mb-mfg.bin-flash_tx8m -offset 0x57c00
SDPV: jump

### GPT partition layout
#
# 32M /boot
# MAX /
FB: ucmd setenv partitions 'uuid_disk=${uuid_gpt_disk};name=boot,size=32M,start=1MiB,uuid=${uuid_boot};name=rootfs,size=MAX,uuid=0cc66cc0-5458-384d-1610-726f6f746673;'
FB: ucmd gpt write mmc 0 ${partitions}

### force re-read partition table
FB: ucmd setenv fastboot_dev sata
FB: ucmd setenv fastboot_dev mmc

### Flashing partitions
FB: flash boot bootfs.fat
FB: flash -raw2sparse rootfs fsl-image-qt5.rootfs.ext4

FB: done

Note

Run man fastboot on your host to see which possibilities you have with FB: command in uuu.

Importing environment

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
uuu_version 1.0.1

#
# author: Markus Bauer <mb@karo-electronics.de>
# (c) 2019
#
# This file imports u-boot environment file.
# The entries into the file look like:
#
# append_bootargs=quiet
# {variable}={value}
# ...
#
# The file has to end with a ZERO byte.

### Boot our uboot with fastboot support
SDPS: boot -f imx-boot-tx8m-nd00-mipi-mb-mfg.bin-flash_tx8m
SDPV: delay 1000
SDPV: write -f imx-boot-tx8m-nd00-mipi-mb-mfg.bin-flash_tx8m -offset 0x57c00
SDPV: jump

### Importing u-boot environment
FB: ucmd setenv fastboot_buffer ${loadaddr}
FB: download -f emmc-boot.env
FB: ucmd env default -a
FB: ucmd env import ${loadaddr}
FB: ucmd printenv
FB: ucmd saveenv

FB: done
[1]Further information about uuu, and the official documentation can be found in uuu.pdf