NXP FRDM-MCXC444

Overview

FRDM-MCXC444 is a compact and scalable development board for rapid prototyping of MCX C444 MCU. It offers industry standard headers for easy access to the MCU’s I/Os, integrated open-standard serial interfaces and on-board MCU-Link debugger. The MCXC is a general purpose ultra-low-power MCU family, providing additional memory, communications and analog peripheral.

FRDM-MCXC444

Hardware

  • MCXC444VLH Arm Cortex-M0+ microcontroller running at 48 MHz

  • 64LQFP package

  • 256 KB flash

  • 32 KB SRAM

  • USB FS 2.0

  • 2x low-power UART, 1x UART, 2x I2C, 2x SPI

  • FXLS8974CF accelerometer

  • Tri-color LED

  • On-board MCU-Link debugger with CMSIS-DAP

  • Arduino Header, mikroBUS, Pmod

For more information about the MCXC444 SoC and FRDM-MCXC444 board, see these references:

Supported Features

The frdm_mcxc444 board target supports the following hardware features:

Interface

Controller

Driver/Component

NVIC

on-chip

nested vector interrupt controller

SYSTICK

on-chip

systick

PINMUX

on-chip

pinmux

GPIO

on-chip

gpio

UART

on-chip

serial port-polling; serial port-interrupt

FLASH

on-chip

soc flash

Targets available

The default configuration can be found in boards/nxp/frdm_mcxc444/frdm_mcxc444_defconfig

Other hardware features are not currently supported by the port.

Connections and IOs

The MCXC444 SoC has five pairs of pinmux/gpio controllers (PORTA/GPIOA, PORTB/GPIOB, PORTC/GPIOC, PORTD/GPIOD, and PORTE/GPIOE) for the FRDM-MCXC444 board.

Name

Function

Usage

PTE20

ADC

ADC0 channel 1

PTE31

GPIO

Red LED

PTD5

GPIO

Green LED

PTE29

GPIO

Blue LED

PTA1

LPUART0_RX

UART Console

PTA2

LPUART0_TX

UART Console

PTA20

RESET

RESET Button SW1

PTC3

GPIO

User button SW2

PTA4

GPIO

User button SW3

PTE25

I2C0_SDA

I2C accelerometer

PTE24

I2C0_SCL

I2C accelerometer

System Clock

The MCXC444 SoC is configured to use HIRC running at 48 MHz as a system clock source.

Serial Port

The MCXC444 LPUART0 is used for the console.

Programming and Debugging

Build and flash applications as usual (see Building an Application and Run an Application for more details).

Configuring a Debug Probe

A debug probe is used for both flashing and debugging the board. This board is configured by default to use the MCU-Link CMSIS-DAP Onboard Debug Probe.

Using LinkServer

Linkserver is the default runner for this board, and supports the factory default MCU-Link firmware. Follow the instructions in MCU-Link CMSIS-DAP Onboard Debug Probe to reprogram the default MCU-Link firmware. This only needs to be done if the default onboard debug circuit firmware was changed. To put the board in DFU mode to program the firmware, short jumper JP2.

Configuring a Console

Connect a USB cable from your PC to J13, and use the serial terminal of your choice (minicom, putty, etc.) with the following settings:

  • Speed: 115200

  • Data: 8 bits

  • Parity: None

  • Stop bits: 1

Flashing

Here is an example for the Hello World application.

# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b frdm_mcxc444 samples/hello_world
west flash

Open a serial terminal, reset the board (press the SW1 button), and you should see the following message in the terminal:

*** Booting Zephyr OS build v3.6.0-4475-gfa5bd8bb098e ***
Hello World! frdm_mcxc444/mcxc444

Debugging

Here is an example for the Hello World application.

# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b frdm_mcxc444 samples/hello_world
west debug

Open a serial terminal, step through the application in your debugger, and you should see the following message in the terminal:

*** Booting Zephyr OS build v3.6.0-4475-gfa5bd8bb098e ***
Hello World! frdm_mcxc444/mcxc444