i.MX8 - iMX8MEVK - Getting Started - Selecting Boot Options

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Boot Loading Options

The i.MX8M Evaluation Kit provides two switches in order to set the boot configurations according to your needs. You can see both switches in the following picture:

Boot switches on the i.MX8M EVK

Where the one surrounded by a red square is the SW801 switch and the one surrounded by a yellow square is the SW802 switch.

• SW802: This switch allows to configure the boot source by selecting one of the following options:
  • Boot From Fuses: The i.MX8M Applications Processor can be set as a boot configuration. This can be made established via eFUSE, a dynamic real-time reprogramming technology of computer chips.
  • Serial Downloader: The i.MX8M downloads a program image from a USB connection.
  • Internal Boot: For development. The boot mode is selected by configuring the SW801 switch.
  • Reserved.

• SW801: This switch allows to configure the boot mode by selecting one of the following options:
  • Boot from EMMC.
  • Boot from SD2.

The method used to determine where the processor finds its boot information is from two dedicated BOOT MODE pins. In the following table you can see how to configure each mode on SW802:

Boot Source	PIN1	PIN2
Boot from fuses	OFF	OFF
Serial Downloader	OFF	ON
Internal Boot	ON	OFF
Reserved	ON	ON

For example, if the method of determining the bootable source code is selected to be from the switch, then the developer must set the SW802: PIN1 to ON, PIN2 to OFF, and the four i.MX8M pins of the SW801 must be set on the EVK board by considering the information present in the following table:

BOOT Configuration	PIN1	PIN2	PIN3	PIN4
Boot from EMMC	OFF	OFF	ON	OFF
Boot from SD2	ON	ON	OFF	OFF

Boot from EMMC

This is how the physical switches SW802 and SW801 should be set in order to boot from EMMC respectively:

Boot switches on the i.MX8M EVK

Boot from SD2

This is how the physical switches SW802 and SW801 should be set to boot from SD2 respectively:

Configuration to boot from the EMMC

Advanced Boot Options

You can load the kernel and filesystem by using advanced methods. Please refer to the Advanced Image Loading page for more information.